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Use Form 941-SS to report social security and Medicare taxes for workers in American Samoa, Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Pub. 80 (Circular SS) explains the requirements for withholding, depositing, and paying social security and Medicare taxes. It explains the forms you must give your employees, those your employees must give you, and those you must send to the IRS. See Pub. 15-A, Employer's Supplemental Tax Guide, for specialized employment tax information supplementing the basic information provided in Pub. 80 (Circular SS).
Generally, you must file a return for the first quarter in which you pay wages subject to social security and Medicare taxes, and for each quarter thereafter until you file a final return. Use Form 941-SS if your principal place of business is in American Samoa, Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, or the U.S. Virgin Islands, or if you have employees who are subject to income tax withholding for these jurisdictions.
Use Form 941-SS to report the following amounts.
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Wages/tips subject to social security and Medicare taxes.
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Both the employer's and the employee's share of social security and Medicare taxes.
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Current quarter's adjustments to social security and Medicare taxes for fractions of cents, sick pay, tips, and group-term life insurance.
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Credit for COBRA premium assistance payments.
You must file a return each quarter, even if you have no tax liability to report unless you file a final return. However, see Seasonal Employers and Agricultural and Household Employers below. If the form fails to reach you, request one in time to file. See Where Can You Obtain Forms, later.
Seasonal employers are not required to file for quarters when they regularly have no tax liability because they have paid no wages. To alert the IRS that you will not have to file a return for one or more quarters during the year, check the box on line 19 on Form 941-SS. The IRS generally will not inquire about unfiled returns if at least one taxable return is filed each year. However, you must check the box on line 19 on every quarterly return you file. Otherwise, the IRS will expect a return to be filed for each quarter.
If you go out of business or stop paying wages to your employees, you must file a final return. To tell the IRS that Form 941-SS for a particular quarter is your final return, check the box on line 18 and enter the date you last paid wages. Also attach a statement to your return showing the name of the person keeping the payroll records and the address where those records will be kept.
See the Instructions for Form W-3SS, Transmittal of Wage and Tax Statements, for information about earlier dates for the expedited furnishing and filing of the following Wage and Tax Statements when a final Form 941-SS is filed.
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W-2AS, American Samoa
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W-2CM, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands
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W-2GU, Guam
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W-2VI, U.S. Virgin Islands
File Form 941-SS for each quarter of the calendar year, as follows:
| Quarter | Due Date | |
| January, February, March | April 30 | |
| April, May, June | July 31 | |
| July, August, September | Oct. 31 | |
| October, November, December | Jan. 31 | |
If you made deposits on time in full payment of the taxes for a quarter, you have 10 more calendar days after the above due dates to file your return for that quarter. If the due date for filing a return falls on a Saturday, Sunday, or legal holiday, you may file the return on the next business day.
If we receive Form 941-SS after the due date, we will treat Form 941-SS as filed on time if the envelope containing Form 941-SS is properly addressed, contains sufficient postage, and is postmarked by the U.S. Postal Service on or before the due date, or sent by an IRS-designated private delivery service on or before the due date. If you do not follow these guidelines, we will consider Form 941-SS filed when it is actually received. See Pub. 80 (Circular SS) for more information on IRS-designated private delivery services.
Mail Form 941-SS to:
| With a payment | Without a payment |
|---|---|
| Internal Revenue Service P.O. Box 105273 Atlanta, GA 30348-5273 |
Internal Revenue Service P.O. Box 409101 Ogden, UT 84409 |
See Pub. 80 (Circular SS) for information on ordering IRS forms by telephone, mail, or online. You may also be able to get some IRS forms at the addresses listed below.
Department of Treasury, Income Tax Division, Government of American Samoa, Executive Office Bldg., First Floor, Pago Pago, AS 96799.
Administrator, CNMI Social Security System, Saipan,
MP 96960.
Department of Revenue and Taxation, Government of Guam, Building 13-1 Mariner Avenue, Tiyjan Barrigada, GU 96913.
To make sure that businesses comply with federal tax laws, the IRS monitors tax filings and payments by using a numerical system to identify taxpayers. A unique 9-digit employer identification number (EIN) is assigned to all corporations, partnerships, and some sole proprietors. Businesses needing an EIN must apply for a number and use it throughout the life of the business on all tax returns, payments, and reports.
Your business should have only one EIN. If you have more than one and are not sure which one to use, write to the IRS office
where you file your returns (using the Without a payment address above) or call the IRS at 1-800-829-4933 (U.S. Virgin Islands only) or 267-941-1000 (toll call). TTY/TDD users in
the U.S. Virgin Islands can
call 1-800-829-4059.
If you do not have an EIN, you may apply for one online. Go to IRS.gov and click on the Apply for an Employer Identification Number (EIN) Online link. You may also apply for an EIN by calling 1-800-829-4933 (U.S. Virgin Islands) or 267-941-1000 (toll call), or you can fax or mail Form SS-4, Application for Employer Identification Number, to the IRS. If you have applied for an EIN but do not have your EIN by the time a return is due, write “Applied For” and the date you applied in the space shown for the number.
Notify the IRS immediately if you change your business name or address.
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Write to the IRS office where you file your returns (using the Without a payment address above) to notify the IRS of any name change. Get Pub. 1635, Understanding Your Employer Identification Number (EIN), to see if you need to apply for a new EIN.
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Complete and mail Form 8822, Change of Address, for any address change.
Under Report for this Quarter of 2011 at the top of Form 941-SS, check the appropriate box of the quarter for which you are filing. Make sure the quarter checked is the same as shown on any attached Schedule B (Form 941), Report of Tax Liability for Semiweekly Schedule Depositors.
Make entries on Form 941-SS as follows to enable accurate processing.
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Use 10-point Courier font (if possible) for all entries if you are typing or using a computer to complete your form.
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Omit dollar signs and decimal points. Commas are optional. Report dollars to the left of the preprinted decimal point and cents to the right of it.
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Leave blank any data field (except lines 1 and 10) with a value of zero.
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Enter negative amounts using a minus sign (if possible). Otherwise, use parentheses.
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Enter your name and EIN on all pages and attachments.
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Staple multiple sheets in the upper left corner when filing.
You can avoid paying penalties and interest if you do all of the following.
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Deposit or pay your taxes when they are due.
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File your fully completed Form 941-SS on time.
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Report your tax liability accurately.
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Submit valid checks for tax payments.
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Furnish accurate Forms W-2AS, W-2CM, W-2GU, or W-2VI to employees.
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File Form W-3SS and Copies A of Form W-2AS, W-2CM, W-2GU, or W-2VI with the Social Security Administration (SSA) on time and accurately.
Penalties and interest are charged on taxes paid late and returns filed late at a rate set by law. See section 8 of Pub. 80 (Circular SS) for details.
The IRS matches amounts reported on your four quarterly Forms 941-SS with Form W-2AS, W-2CM, W-2GU, or W-2VI amounts totaled on your yearly Form W-3SS. If the amounts do not agree, you may be contacted by the IRS or SSA. The following amounts are reconciled.
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Social security wages.
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Social security tips.
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Medicare wages and tips.
Use Schedule D (Form 941), Report of Discrepancies Caused by Acquisitions, Statutory Mergers, or Consolidations, to explain
certain wage, tax, and payment discrepancies between Forms 941-SS and Forms W-2AS, W-2CM, W-2GU, W-2VI, W-3SS, and W-2c that
were caused by acquisitions, statutory mergers, or consolidations. For more information, see the Instructions for Schedule
D (Form 941). Also see Rev. Proc. 2004-53 for more information. You can find Rev. Proc. 2004-53 on page 320 of I.R.B. 2004-34
at
www.irs.gov/pub/irs-irbs/irb04-34.pdf.
If, by the 10th of the month after the month you received an employee's report on tips, you do not have enough employee funds available to withhold the employee's share of social security and Medicare taxes, you no longer have to collect it. Report the entire amount of these tips on lines 5b (Taxable social security tips) and 5c (Taxable Medicare wages and tips). Include as an adjustment on line 9 the total uncollected employee share of the social security and Medicare taxes.
The IRS uses two different sets of deposit rules to determine when businesses must deposit their social security and Medicare taxes. These schedules tell you when a deposit is due after you have a payday.
Your deposit schedule is not determined by how often you pay your employees. Your deposit schedule depends on the total tax liability you reported on Form 941-SS during the previous four-quarter lookback period (July 1 of the second preceding calendar year through June 30 of last year). See section 8 of Pub. 80 (Circular SS) for details. If you filed Form 944-SS in either 2009 or 2010, your lookback period is the 2009 calendar year.
Before the beginning of each calendar year, determine which type of deposit schedule you must use. If you reported:
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$50,000 or less in taxes during the lookback period, you are a monthly schedule depositor.
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More than $50,000 of taxes for the lookback period, you are a semiweekly schedule depositor.
You may have to deposit both the employer and employee social security taxes and Medicare taxes. If your total taxes after adjustments (line 10) are:
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Less than $2,500 for the current quarter or the preceding quarter, and you did not incur a $100,000 next-day deposit obligation during the current quarter. You do not have to make a deposit. To avoid a penalty, you must pay the amount in full with a timely filed return or you must deposit the amount timely. If you are not sure your total tax liability for the current quarter will be less than $2,500, (and your liability for the preceding quarter was not less than $2,500), make deposits using the semiweekly or monthly rules so you won't be subject to failure to deposit penalties.
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$2,500 or more for the current quarter and the preceding quarter. You must make deposits according to your deposit schedule. See section 8 of Pub. 80 (Circular SS) for information and rules about federal tax deposits.
You may reduce your deposits during the quarter by the amount of COBRA premium assistance payments reported on line 12a.
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