First Quarter

If you were using last years Social Security % for your employees, for 2011 you have paid too much and have to show this on your 941 and will have to make some adjustments. You will be getting a fraction of cents for the amount you overpaid in line 7.

1. Clear out the amount showing in line 7.

2. After you have done this, you may then recalculate line 10, which is the combined lines of 6e through 9 (the total for line 10 should end up being line 10 minus your fraction of cents amount).

3. After you have fixed line 10 you have to fix line 15. The difference should be the same as your fraction of cents.

4. Check Apply to next return

After you have fixed the 941 you will have to fix the liability. If you are a semiweekly depositor you will have to do this on the schedule B, if you are a monthly depositor its located on the second page of the 941.

1. Monthly Depositors will have to figure out what the liability should have been if they had paid the Social Security correctly and type in the numbers for each month. The totals of the month’s liabilities should equal the corrected line 10 of the 941.

2. Semiweekly Depositors will have to figure out what the liability should have been if they had paid the Social Security correctly for each paycheck in the month and type the correct numbers in the report; followed by recalculating the totals for each month. When you add up all the liability totals for the month they should equal the corrected line 10 of the 941.

Second Quarter

Because you overpaid first quarter you will have to adjust the Social Security taken out of the next checks to give the over-withheld back to your employees to make their Year-To-Date correct (directions are given in detail in a separate article). Because you are paying back the employee on the second quarter and adjusting the amount of Social Security take out of the checks this quarter’s 941 will also need to be corrected.

1. Clear out the amount showing in line 7.

2. After you have done this, you may then recalculate line 10, which is the combined lines of 6e through 9 (the total for line 10 should end up being line 10 plus your fraction of cents amount because its no longer being subtracted out).

3. You need to adjust line 11 for the overpayment you paid last quarter (when you checked Apply to next return).

4. After adding the overpayment in line 11, you will have to recalculate line 13, which is the combination of line 11 and 12a.

 

After this is done, you will then have to adjust the liability as you did in the first quarter. The two steps are the same as the ones listed above in the first quarter.