key moments from the Congressional Hearing on ERTC Delays
NAPEO President and CEO Pat Cleary was spotlighted by the House Ways and Means Committee after delivering compelling testimony before its Subcommittee on Oversight last week.
In a press release, the powerful committee highlighted Pat’s pushback on the IRS, which last week called the backlog the Employee Retention Credit (ERTC) claims “cleared."
In their “four key moments” from the hearing, the committee highlighted Pat’s exchange with Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-NY), a staunch small business advocate who also cast doubt on the IRS’s notion that the backlog has been cleared. Pat was quoted:
“In fact, their own website a week ago said that it was almost 500,000 in the backlog, so they clearly didn’t clear that out in a week. You know that’s the first problem that we’re seeing occur with this. And you see again, last week that it ticked back up by another few 100,000, so it’s almost at half a million.
Pat maintained that the PEO industry has a strong relationship with the IRS, but Commissioner Daniel Werfel — who stated last week the agency has now “shifted efforts after successfully clearing the backlog of valid” ERTC claims — needs to be transparent about the true state of the ERTC backlog. The most recent figures from the IRS show that the backlog of ERTC claims is 506,000, the fourth consecutive week that number has risen. This line from Pat was featured in the press release:
“For his credibility, I think first shot out of the box, he needs to be credible and truthful in terms of describing what the backlog is.”
Pat’s assertion to Rep. Beth Van Duyne (R-TX) that the so-called “ERTC mills” that prey on small and mid-size businesses came to be due to the unrelenting logjam was also featured in the press release.
In the hearing, Pat pushed the IRS to dedicate additional resources to processing ERTC claims until all older claims filed from 2020-2022 are completely processed and resolved. Pat also showcased the PEO industry’s grassroots efforts to clear this backlog and the benefits of working with a PEO, especially in light of the fraud that has existed around ERTC claims.
You can watch a video of the hearing here and read more about the hearing in this press release we issued.*
*This article came from NAPEO Federal Government Affairs
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