During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) furloughed many of its employees or had them work from home to mitigate the spread of the virus. Many IRS offices remained shuttered for months, thus a backlog of millions of pieces of unopened mail, including IRS checks, accumulated in trailers set up outside IRS facilities.

As more and more organizations make the decision that their staff members can work from home either permanently or on a long-term basis, they may need to take a closer look at how nexus laws will be addressed — especially as several state governments are beginning to address work-from-home employees in terms of nexus and on tax revenue.

For the period between September 1 and December 31, 2020, employers can opt out of withholding the 6.2% payroll tax that is the employee’s share of Social Security taxes. The deferral is only available to employees that earn less than the equivalent of an annual salary of $104,000. If the employer chooses to defer collection, the taxes would then be due no later than April 30, 2021.

The IRS is mailing all recipients of economic impact payments, commonly referred to as stimulus checks, a copy of Notice 1444 that provides information about the amount of their payment, how the payment was made and how to report any payment that wasn’t received.