Oy.

Here's what the various instructions from the IRS indicate.

(insert caveats here ... actual mileage may vary, yada yada yada)

50% of ALL PAYROLL TAXES (not FICA and not just the ER portion of FICA, but ***all payroll taxes,*** including withholdings as well as EE portions) ***up to $10,000***, will be given AS A REFUNDABLE CREDIT to employers who manage to pay their employees from after 3/15/20 and before 1/1/21.

So, take me. I've got 10 EEs (most part-time) representing about $10k of payroll per month, which includes ~$1500 of federal taxes (and ~$600 in state taxes, but ignore that for now). At the end of March, I should have made a deposit of ~ $1500, but instead it was ~$750, just through 3/15. The other $750 was to be reported in 2nd quarter, per IRS directions.

If I'm reading this correctly, Q2 will include my usual $4500 (3 months) + the $750 from Q1, for a total of $5250. If I want, I can claim a credit of $4,750, and get that amount as a check from Uncle Sam (that's what "refundable credit" means), or I can leave it on the account for the 3rd quarter, where it will more than cover that Q's 4500, and I can get the $250 then, or leave it as a credit for 4th Q, and so on.

I can get that credit ahead of time, using Form 7200, but then I'd have to pay Q2 and Q3 like normal. Or I can simply leave the credit on the books and not pay the taxes. This is what we do with credits.

Every employer who has payroll expenses during this time gets to do that. As a thank-you for paying people instead of putting them on unemployment. Thank you, Ms. Shoebox, for paying your employees. Here's a little sum'm sum'm for your troubles. That's how I read it. They're paying $10k of employees' taxes, as long as I keep paying the wages.

Which is how the hell it should be. Pardon my French. (Wait, isn't that German?)

Then again, now that I write it out, it makes too much sense, so I'm probably wrong.