Form 941 is the employer’s quarterly federal tax return. It reports how much federal income taxes were withheld; Social Security taxes and Medicare taxes that are due and how much was paid in deposits to the Internal Revenue Service.
Payroll is envisioned as the simple employer employee agreement related to compensation for services. I often think of this as the simple handshake whereby the employer agrees to pay the employee a set rate per hour of work. This was true a hundred or more years ago, but over time; history and governmental regulations complicated this simple relationship.
An audit is defined as a methodical examination. Audits are grouped into two principal sets – financial and organizational compliance (usually related to licensure). For the small business entrepreneur, it is almost unheard of for them to have an organizational compliance audit.
Form 941 is the employer’s quarterly federal tax return. It reports how much federal income taxes were withheld; Social Security taxes and Medicare taxes that are due and how much was paid in deposits to the Internal Revenue Service. The report is filed every three months for each of the four calendar quarters.
I dread January of every year. I have to spend so much time preparing the year-end payroll reports prior to the January 31 deadline. Not only must your quarterly’s and monthly’s tie together, but it has to match the general ledger at year-end.
