Pursuant to the CARES Act of 2020, Congress authorized a powerful tax incentive for businesses called the employee retention credit (ERC). The purpose of this refundable tax credit was to reward small and medium-sized businesses for retaining employees through the pandemic.

To qualify, businesses generally had to, among other items, establish that they: had a significant decline in gross receipts for a particular quarter; or had business operations fully or partially suspended due to a COVID-related governmental order. If eligible, businesses could receive up to 50% of each employee’s qualified wages up to $5,000 for 2020 and up to 70% of each employee’s qualified wages for the first three quarters of 2021 up to $21,000. In total, they could generally receive up to $26,000 per employee.