There are two types of adjustments: current year adjustments and prior year adjustments. See the instructions for Form 943 for more information on how to report these adjustments.

Current Year Adjustments

In certain cases, amounts reported as social security and Medicare taxes on lines 3 and 5 of Form 943 must be adjusted to arrive at your correct tax liability. The most common situation involves differences in cents totals due to rounding. Other situations when current year adjustments may be necessary include third-party sick pay, group-term life insurance for former employees, and the uncollected employee share of tax on tips. See Circular E for more information on these adjustments.

If you withhold an incorrect amount of income tax from an employee, you may adjust the amount withheld in later pay periods during the same year to compensate for the error.

Prior Year Adjustments

Generally, you can correct social security and Medicare errors on prior year Forms 943 by making an adjustment on the Form 943 for the year during which the error is discovered. The adjustment increases or decreases your tax liability for the year in which it is reported (the year the error is discovered) and is interest free. The net adjustments reported on Form 943 may include any number of corrections for one or more previous years, including both overpayments and underpayments.

You are required to provide background information and certifications supporting prior year adjustments. File with Form 943 a Form 941c, Supporting Statement To Correct Information, or attach a statement that shows all of the following:

• What the error was,
• The year in which each error was made and the amount of each error,
• The date you found each error,
• That you repaid the employee tax or received from each affected employee written consent to this refund or credit, if the entry corrects an overcollection, and
• If the entry corrects social security and Medicare taxes overcollected in an earlier year, that you received from the employee a written statement that he or she will not claim a refund or credit for the amount.

Do not file Form 941c or the written statement separately. The IRS will not be able to process your adjustments without this supporting information. See the instructions for Form 941c for more information.

Income tax withholding adjustments. You cannot adjust the amount reported as income tax withheld for a prior year return, even if you withheld the wrong amount. However, you may adjust prior year income tax withholding to correct an administrative error. An administrative error occurs if the amount you entered on Form 943 is not the amount you actually withheld. Examples include mathematical or transposition errors. In these cases, you should adjust the return to show the amount actually withheld.

The administrative error adjustment corrects only the amount reported on Form 943 to agree with the actual amount withheld from wages in that year.

You may also need to correct Forms W-2 for the prior year if they do not show the actual withholding by filing Form W-2c, Corrected Wage and Tax Statement, and Form W-3c, Transmittal of Corrected Wage and Tax Statements.

Social security and Medicare tax adjustments. Correct prior year social security and Medicare tax errors by making an adjustment on line 8 of Form 943 for the year during which the error was discovered.

If you withheld no tax or less than the correct amount, you may correct the mistake by withholding the tax from a later payment to the same employee.

If you withheld employee tax when no tax is due or if you withheld more than the correct amount, you should repay the employee.

Filing a claim for overreported prior year liabilities. If you discover an error on a prior year return resulting in a tax overpayment, you may file Form 843, Claim for Refund and Request for Abatement, for a refund. This form also can be used to request an abatement of an overassessment of employment taxes, interest, and/or penalties. You must file Form 941c, or an equivalent statement, with Form 843. See the separate Instructions for Form 843.

Note: For purposes of filing Form 843, a timely filed Form 943 is considered to be filed on April 15 of the year after the close of the tax year. Generally, a claim may be filed within 3 years from that date.

Refunding amounts incorrectly withheld from employees. If you withheld more than the right amount of income, social security, or Medicare taxes from wages paid, give the employee the excess. Any excess income tax withholding must be reimbursed to the employee prior to the end of the calendar year. Keep in your records the employee's written receipt showing the date and amount of the repayment. If you do not have a receipt, you must report and pay each excess amount when you file Form 943 for the year in which you withheld too much tax.

Filing corrections to Form W-2 and W-3 statements. When adjustments are made to correct social security and Medicare taxes because of a change in the wage totals reported for a previous year, you also may need to file Forms W-2c and Form W-3c.

Previous | First | Next

Publication Index | 2000 Tax Help Archives | Tax Help Archives | Home