Instructions for Schedule B (2014)

Instructions for Schedule B

(Form 941)

Department of the Treasury

Internal Revenue Service

(Rev. January 2014)

Report of Tax Liability for Semiweekly Schedule Depositors

Section references are to the Internal Revenue Code unless

otherwise noted.

Future Developments

For the latest information about developments related to

Schedule B and its instructions, such as legislation enacted after

they were published, go to www.irs.gov/form941.

Reminders

Reporting prior period adjustments. Prior period

adjustments are reported on Form 941-X, Adjusted Employer's

QUARTERLY Federal Tax Return or Claim for Refund, or Form

944-X, Adjusted Employer's ANNUAL Federal Tax Return or

Claim for Refund, and are not taken into account when figuring

the tax liability for the current quarter.

When you file Schedule B with your Form 941 (or Form

941-SS), do not change your tax liability by adjustments

reported on any Form 941-X or 944-X.

Amended Schedule B. If you have been assessed a

failure-to-deposit (FTD) penalty, you may be able to file an

amended Schedule B. See Correcting Previously Reported Tax

Liability, later.

General Instructions

Purpose of Schedule B

These instructions tell you about Schedule B, Report of Tax

Liability for Semiweekly Schedule Depositors. To determine if

you are a semiweekly depositor, visit IRS.gov and type

“semiweekly depositor” in the search box. Also see Pub. 15

(Circular E), Employer's Tax Guide, or Pub. 80 (Circular SS),

Federal Tax Guide for Employers in the U.S. Virgin Islands,

Guam, American Samoa, and the Commonwealth of the

Northern Mariana Islands.

The IRS uses Schedule B to determine if you have

deposited your federal employment tax liabilities on

CAUTION

time. If you do not properly complete and file your

Schedule B with Form 941 or Form 941-SS, the IRS may

propose an “averaged” failure-to-deposit penalty. See Deposit

Penalties in section 11 of Pub. 15 (Circular E) for more

information.

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Who Must File?

File Schedule B if you are a semiweekly schedule depositor. You

are a semiweekly depositor if you reported more than $50,000 of

employment taxes in the lookback period or accumulated a tax

liability of $100,000 or more on any given day in the current or

prior calendar year. See section 11 of Pub. 15 (Circular E) for

more information.

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Do not complete Schedule B if you have a tax liability

that is less than $2,500 during the quarter.

CAUTION

When Must You File?

Schedule B is filed with Form 941, Employer's QUARTERLY

Federal Tax Return, or Form 941-SS, Employer's QUARTERLY

Federal Tax Return (American Samoa, Guam, the

Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and the U.S.

Virgin Islands). Therefore, the due date of Schedule B is the

same as the due date for the applicable Form 941 or Form

941-SS.

Do not file Schedule B as an attachment to Form 944,

Employer's ANNUAL Federal Tax Return. Instead, if required to

file a report of tax liability with Form 944, use Form 945-A,

Annual Record of Federal Tax Liability.

Specific Instructions

Completing Schedule B

Federal law requires you, as an employer, to withhold certain

taxes from your employees' paychecks. Each time you pay

wages, you must withhold – or take out of your employees'

paychecks – certain amounts for federal income, social security,

and Medicare taxes (payroll taxes). Under the withholding

system, taxes withheld from your employees are credited to your

employees in payment of their tax liabilities.

Enter Your Business Information

Federal law also requires employers to pay any liability for the

employer's portion of social security and Medicare taxes. This

portion of social security and Medicare taxes is not withheld from

employees.

Calendar Year

On Schedule B, list your tax liability for each day. Your

liability includes:

The federal income tax you withheld from your employees'

paychecks, and

Both employee and employer social security and Medicare

taxes.

Under Report for this Quarter at the top of Schedule B, check the

appropriate box of the quarter for which you are filing this

schedule. Make sure the quarter checked on the top of the

Schedule B matches the quarter checked on your Form 941 or

Form 941-SS.

Carefully enter your employer identification number (EIN) and

name at the top of the schedule. Make sure that they exactly

match the name of your business and the EIN that the IRS

assigned to your business and also agree with the name and

EIN shown on the attached Form 941 or Form 941-SS.

Enter the calendar year that applies to the quarter checked.

Check the Box for the Quarter

Do not use the Schedule B to show federal tax deposits. The

IRS gets deposit data from electronic funds transfers.

Jan 23, 2014

Cat. No. 38683X

Enter Your Tax Liability by Month

accumulated employment tax liability of $112,000 on 1/18/13.

For more information, see section 11 of Pub. 15 (Circular E) or

section 8 of Pub. 80 (Circular SS).

Employer C must complete Schedule B as shown below and

file it with Form 941 or 941-SS.

For example, if your payroll period ended on December 31,

2013, and you paid the wages for that period on January 6,

2014, you would:

Go to Month 1 (because January is the first month of the

quarter), and

Enter your tax liability on line 6 (because line 6 represents

the sixth day of the month).

Month

1 (January)

1 (January)

2 (February)

3 (March)

Schedule B is divided into the 3 months that make up a quarter

of a year. Each month has 31 numbered spaces that correspond

to the dates of a typical month. Enter your tax liabilities in the

spaces that correspond to the dates you paid wages to your

employees, not the date payroll deposits were made.

TIP

Semiweekly schedule depositors. If you have been assessed

a failure-to-deposit (FTD) penalty for a quarter and you made an

error on Schedule B and the correction will not change the total

liability for the quarter you reported on Schedule B, you may be

able to reduce your penalty by filing a corrected Schedule B.

Total Liability for the Quarter

Example. You reported a liability of $3,000 on day 1 of

month 1. However, the liability was actually for month 3. Prepare

an amended Schedule B showing the $3,000 liability on day 1 of

month 3. Also, you must enter the liabilities previously reported

for the quarter that did not change. Write “Amended” at the top of

Schedule B. The IRS will refigure the penalty and notify you of

any change in the penalty.

To find your total liability for the quarter, add your monthly tax

liabilities.

Tax Liability for Month 1

+Tax Liability for Month 2

+Tax Liability for Month 3

Total Liability for the Quarter

Monthly schedule depositors. You can file a Schedule B if

you have been assessed an FTD penalty for a quarter and you

made an error on the monthly tax liability section of Form 941.

When completing Schedule B, only enter the monthly totals. The

daily entries are not required.

Your total liability for the quarter must equal line 10 on Form 941 or Form

941-SS.

Example 1. Employer A is a semiweekly schedule depositor

who pays wages for each month on the last day of the month.

On December 24, 2013, Employer A also paid its employees

year-end bonuses (subject to employment taxes). Employer A

must report employment tax liabilities on Schedule B for the 4th

quarter (October, November, December), as follows.

Where to file. File your amended Schedule B at the address

provided in the penalty notice you received. You do not have to

submit your original Schedule B.

Form 941-X

Tax decrease. If you are filing Form 941-X for a quarter, you

can file an amended Schedule B with Form 941-X if both of the

following apply.

1. You have a tax decrease.

2. You were assessed an FTD penalty.

Lines for dates wages were paid

line 31 (pay day, last day of the month)

line 30 (pay day, last day of the month)

line 24 (bonus paid December 24, 2013)

line 31 (pay day, last day of the month)

File your amended Schedule B with Form 941-X. The total

liability for the quarter reported on your corrected Schedule B

must equal the corrected amount of tax reported on Form 941-X.

If your penalty is decreased, the IRS will include the penalty

decrease with your tax decrease.

Example 2. Employer B is a semiweekly schedule depositor

who pays employees every other Friday. Employer B

accumulated a $20,000 employment tax liability on each of

these pay dates: 01/04/13, 01/18/13, 02/01/13, 02/15/13,

03/01/13, 03/15/13, and 03/29/13. Employer B must report

employment tax liabilities on Schedule B as follows.

Month

1 (January)

2 (February)

3 (March)

Amount to report

$2,000

$110,000

$110,000

$110,000

Correcting Previously Reported Tax Liability

Make sure you have checked the appropriate box in

Part 2 of Form 941 or Form 941-SS to show that you are

a semiweekly schedule depositor.

Month

1 (October)

2 (November)

3 (December)

3 (December)

Lines for dates wages were paid

line 11

lines 18, 25

lines 1, 8, 15, and 22

lines 1, 8, 15, 22, and 29

Tax increase — Form 941-X filed timely. If you are filing a

timely Form 941-X, do not file an amended Schedule B, unless

you were assessed an FTD penalty caused by an incorrect,

incomplete, or missing Schedule B. If you are filing an amended

Schedule B, do not include the tax increase reported on Form

941-X.

Lines for dates wages were paid

lines 4 and 18

lines 1 and 15

lines 1, 15, and 29

Tax increase — Form 941-X filed late. If you owe tax and are

filing a late Form 941-X, that is, after the due date of the return

for the return period in which you discovered the error, you must

file an amended Schedule B with Form 941-X. Otherwise, the

IRS may assess an “averaged” FTD penalty.

The total tax reported on the “Total liability for the quarter” line of

the amended Schedule B must match the corrected tax (Form

941, line 10, combined with any correction reported on Form

941-X, line 18, minus any advance EIC reported on Form 941-X,

line 19) for the quarter, less any previous abatements and

interest-free tax assessments.

Example 3. Employer C is a new business and monthly

schedule depositor for 2013. Employer C paid wages every

Friday and accumulated a $2,000 employment tax liability on

01/11/13. On 01/18/13, and on every subsequent Friday during

2013, Employer C accumulated a $110,000 employment tax

liability. Under the deposit rules, employers become

semiweekly schedule depositors on the day after any day

they accumulate $100,000 or more of employment tax liability in

a deposit period. Employer C became a semiweekly schedule

depositor on 1/19/13, because Employer C had a total

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Instructions for Schedule B (Form 941) (Rev. 1-2014)

Internal Revenue law. Generally, tax returns and return

information are confidential, as required by Code section 6103.

Note. Form 941-X will be revised in April 2014. If you are using

the April 2014 revision, the total tax reported on the “Total

liability for the quarter” line of the amended Schedule B must

match the corrected tax (Form 941, line 10, combined with any

correction reported on Form 941-X, line 18) for the quarter, less

any previous abatements and interest-free tax assessments.

The time needed to complete and file Schedule B will vary

depending on individual circumstances. The estimated average

time is 2 hours, 53 minutes.

If you have comments concerning the accuracy of this time

estimate or suggestions for making Schedule B simpler, we

would be happy to hear from you. You can send us comments

from www.irs.gov/formspubs. Click on More Information then

click on Comment on Tax Forms and Publications. Or you can

send your comments to Internal Revenue Service, Tax Forms

and Publications Division, 1111 Constitution Ave. NW, IR-6526,

Washington, DC 20224. Do not send Schedule B to this

address. Instead, see Where Should You File? in the Form 941

or Form 941-SS instructions.

Paperwork Reduction Act Notice. We ask for the information

on Schedule B to carry out the Internal Revenue laws of the

United States. You are required to give us the information. We

need it to ensure that you are complying with these laws and to

allow us to figure and collect the right amount of tax.

You are not required to provide the information requested on

a form that is subject to the Paperwork Reduction Act unless the

form displays a valid OMB control number. Books or records

relating to a form or its instructions must be retained as long as

their contents may become material in the administration of any

Instructions for Schedule B (Form 941) (Rev. 1-2014)

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