Companies that fail to make their payroll tax deposits will eventually be faced with dealing with IRS Collections. One of the tools that the IRS has in its arsenal is the Trust Fund Recovery Penalty which is assessed on the people responsible for not making the payments. Defending against this assessment starts with understanding who the IRS will consider to be a responsible person.
The IRS considers a responsible person to be anybody who is accountable for collecting OR paying the payroll taxes and who then willfully fails to do so. “Willful” sounds like a possible out if your cash flow is in the toilet, but it’s not. Paying other bills before the IRS is considered evidence of willfulness.
Typically, the IRS will assess people in the following positions:
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- The owner/operator – There is no out for anybody in this position. Even if you did not know the taxes were not being paid, the courts have held that you should have.
- Other officers of the corporation if they had signature authority on bank accounts and knew that the payroll taxes were not being paid.
- Accountants that had signature authority on bank accounts and signed the payroll tax returns.
- Lenders who have funded payrolls in the amount that only covers the employees’ net paycheck. The theory here is that they knew the company owed the funds and could have required them to borrow enough to pay the taxes.
The best defense for anybody in these positions, other than the owner, is to not have signature authority on any business bank accounts. The ultimate responsible person is always the top guy or gal. Business owners and CEOs cannot delegate this responsibility away.
My next post will cover some strategies for dealing with a potential Trust Fund Recovery Penalty.
