** This article was originally sent to our Bennett/Porter clients via email on 4/17/2020 **
It's Friday, and the end of another fast-changing week for businesses and their employees. To help you keep up with and respond to events that impact your business, we've put together some helpful notes and notifications.
CAT Tax Webinar
Figuring out how much you owe to the State of Oregon for the new Corporate Activity Tax is not straightforward. And every company who has revenue of more than $1,000,000 per year is required to make estimated tax payments for the new tax that Governor Brown mandated last summer.
While many of our personal and corporate taxes are being deferred at least through July (due to the COVID-19 pandemic), the first estimated CAT tax payment is due as of April 30th. (At least as of this date. If you are concerned about the impact of this new tax on employers during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Portland Business Alliance is currently petitioning Kate Brown and Oregon lawmakers to delay the CAT tax payment requirement. Here is the Portland Business Alliance's petition site.) For now, the State of Oregon still expects you to make an estimated payment by the end of the month if your First Quarter’s gross revenue (not profit, but gross revenue) is $1,000,000 or more. Note that while there is not a form for making the estimated payment (through Revenue Online), the payment is still required if you meet the threshold. You have two options for configuring a discount on the tax, plus you need to exclude some the sales made outside of the State of Oregon.
Join us for an informative webinar on Thursday, April the 23rd, presented by Penny Sweeting of Geffen Mesher, who will outline how the tax came to be, as well as how to configure the estimated tax due.
The cost of the Webinar is $99 per person.
Sage Online Classes
A reminder! Sage is providing free online training for Sage 100 Core Accounting, Distribution, and Payroll modules through Sage University through the end of May. You’ll have to register on the site to be able to take the classes, but after registering, you can sign up for classes listed as “free” through May 31st.
Payroll 941 Form and COVID-19 Taxes
For those of you that are using the new COVID-19 earnings codes in Sage 100 2018 through Sage 100 2020 Payroll, please note that Sage did not update the 941 Schedule B with the new COVID-19 Medicare and COVID-19 Social Security Taxes. The only taxes that show on the Schedule B are your “regular” taxes, and they do not include the COVID-19 Medicare and COVID-19 FICA taxes. We’ve trained many of our clients to use that Schedule B to confirm their tax payment amounts, but for now, you will not be able to rely on that Schedule B for that confirmation. Please keep recording information on the spreadsheet we provided to you with each payroll you have COVID-19 earnings in, as that should make the reconciliation for the second quarter of the year much easier. (We just learned that the draft 941 Form for the Second Quarter will have more pages, plus it has at least 20 new fields on it!)