IRS Successfully Recovers Millions in Employee Retention Credit Funds from Scammers with Voluntary Disclosure Program and Audits

In response to the misuse of the Employee Retention Credit (ERC), the IRS has been working tirelessly to recover funds that were distributed improperly. The ERC was intended to assist businesses in retaining employees during pandemic-related shutdowns, but scammers took advantage of its complex eligibility rules.

To address this issue, the IRS launched a voluntary disclosure program that ended on March 22. Small businesses participating in this program returned money they received in error and kept 20% of it. Over 500 taxpayers contributed $225 million, with an additional 800 submissions still in process. Additionally, an ongoing program led to over 1,800 businesses withdrawing $251 million in unprocessed claims.

The IRS also conducted audits on over 12,000 businesses with over 22,000 improper claims, resulting in assessments of $572 million. IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel expressed concern about the widespread abuse of the ERC but also stated that the results of these initiatives have been promising in helping misled businesses.

Despite stopping processing new claims in September due to fraud concerns, the IRS plans to resume processing them in the spring. However, approximately $3 billion is currently under review by IRS Criminal Investigation as part of efforts to address fraud and abuse related to the ERC.