The employee retention credit (ERC) has been talked about a lot in the press over the past year. In fact, many businesses can't make it through a day without getting a phone call from or seeing an advertisement by a company promoting ERC-related services. With the potential for businesses to receive a federal tax credit of up to $26,000 per employee, it is easy to see why.

Although the ERC was designed to put money into the pockets of businesses experiencing disruptions during the COVID-19 pandemic, it also created a cottage industry of ERC advisers competing for those businesses as clients. While some ERC advisers have taken care to ensure that the businesses they assist are actually entitled to the credits they claim, it has been reported that other so-called ERC mills routinely mislead businesses into claiming the credit regardless of eligibility.