SpiderERC is a new startup focused on the Employee Retention Credit, which enables small businesses and nonprofits to obtain up to $26,000 per employee from the government. Founder Eric Brief says “the ERC isn’t too good to be true -it’s both good and true.
Austin, TX – SpiderERC, a new startup based in Austin, Texas, is a boutique financial services firm. But unlike most companies of its type, Spider’s entire business is focused on a single provision of the tax code: the Employee Retention Credit, which provides cash to businesses who made it through the Covid-19 pandemic and kept employees on payroll.
“Millions of businesses are eligible for this tax credit – and nonprofits too,” says SpiderERC founder Eric Brief, whose previous business was the marketing firm Proven Marketing Now. “And yet, most small businesses don’t know about it, or don’t realize that they may be eligible to receive thousands of dollars from the government.”
Brief says that while the work required to properly calculate the ERC is quite complex, the eligibility rules are broad. If a company had W2 employees in 2020 or 2021, and either experienced a decline in revenue or was limited by pandemic-era health regulations, it is likely eligible for the ERC.
“Our goal is to take the complexity out of the ERC and help our clients get the credit they’re entitled to receive,” says Brief. “We’ve run small businesses ourselves – we get it.”
The ERC – sometimes called the ERTC, or Employee Retention Tax Credit – is part of the CARES Act to help the American economy from the lasting effects of the pandemic. It provides credits of up to $5,000 per employee over two quarters of 2020, and $7,000 per employee for the first three quarters of 2021. ERC claims must be filed by 2024.
“Part of the issue,” Brief said, “is that accountants or payroll companies who don’t specialize in the ERC often overlook some of the IRS’s rulings about its scope. They can unintentionally file for too much – or leave thousands of dollars on the table.”
For example, accountants may not know that nonprofits can receive the credit even without showing a decline in revenue, as long as they had to cut back on providing their services due to Covid-19 regulations – which many, if not most, nonprofits did.
SpiderERC works directly with businesses and with accounting and other financial firms. “We’re often able to obtain five- or six-figure returns for our clients with only an hour or so of work on their part,” said Brief. “One customer asked me if the ERC is just too good to be true – I told him it’s both good and true.”
SpiderERC can be contacted online at https://spidererc.com