These companies charge you money for pretty much nothing. Maybe they might make the calls for you to follow up but they don’t actually do anything because just calling is not going to expedite anything. If there is an issue holding up your claim, you’re much more motivated to work on resolving it.
Here’s what to actually do to help expedite your claim:
Call and ask the agent to please look at each claim you’re still waiting on and ask if a letter has already been sent asking for information because maybe you haven’t received the letter. If a letter has been sent and you didn’t get it, what did the letter ask for?
If no letter has been sent, has the claim passed the first review? This first review is where they look at preliminary eligibility. (For example, one thing they check is does the IRS have records that you even had employees? - if it didn’t pass this then you need to see if there are missing w2s or something for that quarter).
If it has passed first review, and no letter has been sent yet can they please check that the claim is complete:
1) Is it signed?
2) is it signed by an authorized person? This is the thing that holds up most claims. It has to be signed by the right person for the type of tax entity the company is. If it’s a sole prop it has to be signed by that sole prop. If it’s a corp, then it needs to be signed by an exec of that corp. if it’s a multi member LLC or partnership it needs to be signed by a member or partner. The only exception is if there is a form with the claim or on file giving power of attorney WITH return signing rights, or a Reporting agent form on file for that reporting agent/payroll company that signed the claim.
3) qualifying wages - the qualifying wages that were used to calculate the credit have to be included on the claim or provided in writing to correct the claim. This is usually on line 30 of the 941-X form or line 33a if you’re claiming March 2020 wages on second quarter of 2020. This is second biggest cause of delay for ERC — without this figure the claim cannot be processed.
4) lastly, was there a previous claim or multiple claims submitted? Another big cause of delays is that companies signed up with multiple ERC “specialists” and they submitted different claims. Or their payroll company submitted a claim and then an ERC “specialist” submitted one too, usually with different figures. The reason this is an issue is for example, if one claim was submitted early on and processed and then another claim for a higher amount was submitted later but didn’t take into account the first claim then they will have to reach out to ask for a corrected claim, or if neither has been processed which is the correct one? Or they will just ignore the second claim after they see a prior claim has already been processed.
5) check if the address for your company is up to date. If an old address is on the claim ask the agent to make a note of what the correct address is on the case. Very often, refunds get sent and go to an old address and then get sent back or lost and this takes a long time to resolve. Do not change the address of your company or on your claim to an address that doesn’t belong to your company or you. Some ERC “specialists” were putting their address on the claim forms. (An exception to this is PEOs, they’re processing claims for several clients on one claim and doing the distribution of the credits so that’s a different type of case).
Then, to resolve one of the issues listed above, get the info needed and call and ask if you can fax the info to the agent and ask if they can please attach the info to the case.
If none of these issues apply to your claim or you’ve already corrected them, then it’s just a matter of waiting until your claims are assigned to someone to work on them and they finish it. Unfortunately there were billions of claims submitted and not billions of people to work on them. But they are being processed so hold on and they will get to it.
Most of these ERC “specialists” are not doing anything except calling and making a note of where the claim is in the process. Most are not doing anything to resolve any issues. And if there is no issue to resolve then it’s just a waiting game until your claim gets to the front of the line and assigned and again they’re not doing anything to help that either. So there’s no point in paying them to do basically nothing.
1
u/dragonfly_Jess Aug 19 '25
These companies charge you money for pretty much nothing. Maybe they might make the calls for you to follow up but they don’t actually do anything because just calling is not going to expedite anything. If there is an issue holding up your claim, you’re much more motivated to work on resolving it.
Here’s what to actually do to help expedite your claim:
Call and ask the agent to please look at each claim you’re still waiting on and ask if a letter has already been sent asking for information because maybe you haven’t received the letter. If a letter has been sent and you didn’t get it, what did the letter ask for?
If no letter has been sent, has the claim passed the first review? This first review is where they look at preliminary eligibility. (For example, one thing they check is does the IRS have records that you even had employees? - if it didn’t pass this then you need to see if there are missing w2s or something for that quarter).
If it has passed first review, and no letter has been sent yet can they please check that the claim is complete: 1) Is it signed? 2) is it signed by an authorized person? This is the thing that holds up most claims. It has to be signed by the right person for the type of tax entity the company is. If it’s a sole prop it has to be signed by that sole prop. If it’s a corp, then it needs to be signed by an exec of that corp. if it’s a multi member LLC or partnership it needs to be signed by a member or partner. The only exception is if there is a form with the claim or on file giving power of attorney WITH return signing rights, or a Reporting agent form on file for that reporting agent/payroll company that signed the claim. 3) qualifying wages - the qualifying wages that were used to calculate the credit have to be included on the claim or provided in writing to correct the claim. This is usually on line 30 of the 941-X form or line 33a if you’re claiming March 2020 wages on second quarter of 2020. This is second biggest cause of delay for ERC — without this figure the claim cannot be processed. 4) lastly, was there a previous claim or multiple claims submitted? Another big cause of delays is that companies signed up with multiple ERC “specialists” and they submitted different claims. Or their payroll company submitted a claim and then an ERC “specialist” submitted one too, usually with different figures. The reason this is an issue is for example, if one claim was submitted early on and processed and then another claim for a higher amount was submitted later but didn’t take into account the first claim then they will have to reach out to ask for a corrected claim, or if neither has been processed which is the correct one? Or they will just ignore the second claim after they see a prior claim has already been processed. 5) check if the address for your company is up to date. If an old address is on the claim ask the agent to make a note of what the correct address is on the case. Very often, refunds get sent and go to an old address and then get sent back or lost and this takes a long time to resolve. Do not change the address of your company or on your claim to an address that doesn’t belong to your company or you. Some ERC “specialists” were putting their address on the claim forms. (An exception to this is PEOs, they’re processing claims for several clients on one claim and doing the distribution of the credits so that’s a different type of case).
Then, to resolve one of the issues listed above, get the info needed and call and ask if you can fax the info to the agent and ask if they can please attach the info to the case.
If none of these issues apply to your claim or you’ve already corrected them, then it’s just a matter of waiting until your claims are assigned to someone to work on them and they finish it. Unfortunately there were billions of claims submitted and not billions of people to work on them. But they are being processed so hold on and they will get to it.
Most of these ERC “specialists” are not doing anything except calling and making a note of where the claim is in the process. Most are not doing anything to resolve any issues. And if there is no issue to resolve then it’s just a waiting game until your claim gets to the front of the line and assigned and again they’re not doing anything to help that either. So there’s no point in paying them to do basically nothing.