Businesses and taxpayers should be aware that the IRS has hit the pause button on its Employee Retention Credit (“ERC”) program and is increasing its processing time of claims already received, due to mounting concerns of “unscrupulous” behavior. The moratorium on processing new claims began on September 14, 2023, and will last until December 31, 2023. Businesses that filed claims prior to the moratorium can expect to have their processing time doubled, from 90 days to 180 days, according to the Internal Revenue Service’s recent news release, IR-2023-169.

While the September 14, 2023, news release is focused on ERC claims, the IRS’s Criminal Investigation (“IRS-CI”) division is focused on a variety of COVID-19 related activities that it sees as fraudulent, according to the news release.

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