The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Michael Slawin ERC (CARES Act) Specialist

Episode Date: September 13, 2022

Michael Slawin ERC (CARES Act) Specialist Contact Michael at: https://calendly.com/schedule-your-review/click-here-to-meet-regarding-erc [e-mail] cell: 314-503-5153

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times because you're about to go on a monster education rollercoaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, are you ready to podcast? Here's your host, Chris Voss. I don't know what I'm doing. It just sounded like a fun thing to

do today welcome to the chris voss show everyone oh my gosh it's another show who saw that coming we certainly appreciate you guys being here as always for the show your family friends and relatives you know we're the chris voss show is like a giant multi-level marketing organization we expect you to have five people in your downline that you have been to join the show and subscribe so unless you get your five people we're gonna have to have one of those meetings like like uh glengarry glenn ross meeting where i show up as your i show up at your office late at night and and i talk about who gets knives and coffees for closers and crap so go make sure and get your five people signed up for the show or else, damn it.

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Are they allowed to put that on their resume? Are they legally allowed to put that on their resume? I don't know. We'll refer that to the attorneys and they'll get back to us. Right now they're working on some other things. We have Michael Slaywin on the show with us today. He's the founder of ERC Planning, and he's going to be talking to us about amazing things. Those of you who have a business out there are going to want to hear what he has to say,

and he might be able to save you some cash, some money. Money is always good. He is a fourth generation entrepreneur. Michael has owned a variety of businesses, including those in real estate, e-commerce, printing, and he also volunteers and reports to and supports a number of nonprofits. Welcome to the show, Michael. It's Friday, so I'm losing my mind. How are you? I'm doing great, Chris. I'm really excited to be on your show. We're excited to have you. Big fan. Sorry to cut you off there. We're excited to have you as well, but we're not good at getting complimented, clearly. So give me your dot com, Michael, so people can look you up on your website. It is ercplanning.com.

So Richard, Charlie, planning as in Paul, planning.com. And I think if you're watching this video online on our YouTube channel, you can see your email. I think it is that you got up there. Yes. And that is michael at ercplanning.com. There you go. So, Michael, it sounds like you've done a lot of different things. You've been an entrepreneur.

Give us a little bit more of background in your words, and then what led you into starting this company? Well, you know, I've got a very strong background in sales and marketing, and I love making a win-win to coin a phrase. But in this case, I feel like it's a win-win-win with the employee retention credit. So I don't know. I just, there was an opportunity that was presented and I took the opportunity because I, number one, I'm helping lots of nonprofits and lots of businesses who've been suffering during COVID. And it's really important to get this money into their hands. And so you specialize in ERC, and it stands for Employee Retention Credit. What is this thing?

What is it about? Who created it? Sure. Sure. Sure. Okay. So in March of 2020, when we entered the COVID era, I guess the CARES Act was approved by Congress, signed by the president, and it had several programs that were part of the CARES Act. One of them was ERC, the Employee Retention Credit. Not many people took advantage, not many businesses or nonprofits took advantage of it because of the restrictions on qualifications. Since that time, the restrictions and those folks, those businesses and nonprofits that are eligible, it's expanded significantly.

So that's how it started. Most people were doing PPP, which from what I understand was a nightmare. PPP has no more money. ERC started off with a pot of $400 billion with a B that needs to be distributed to nonprofits and businesses. So it's employee retention credit. So does it basically, I mean, it seems dumb to say this, but I have to make sure I'll clarify. Is it for employers who retain their employees during COVID? That was the original intent. But quite frankly, at this point, even if you weren't able to retain employees throughout the entire 2020 and 2021, you are still eligible to apply for ERC. Even if your business, you had to shut down your business

in the last year or two, you are still eligible. In fact, I've got a guy, I just qualified for hundreds of thousands of dollars. He's got three restaurants, two of them closed, but he's able to open up a third one. So yeah. So I've had a number of folks like that. This can be great because maybe those companies that either failed or had to shrink down, they can maybe get some money back so they can re-expand now that we're in a different environment. And how do you qualify? How do you know if your business or nonprofit will qualify? What if the revenue increased, et cetera, et cetera? If the revenue increased, you still may qualify. A revenue increase, and I can't stress this enough because this is one of the things that most folks can't wrap their brains around.

If your revenue increased, in fact, half the folks that I've qualified have had revenue increases. So the way you qualify is a supply chain disruption. If you're a grocery store and you could not get bread or milk. Oh, yeah. Okay. Or if you had a partial or full shutdown. So in other words, again, going back to any type of restaurant, if they were only able to serve 75% of their capacity mandated by a government order, they would also qualify. Oh, wow. That's pretty good. I mean, there was a lot of companies, restaurants and different

things in both California and New York that were particularly hit by that. They couldn't serve as many people. They had to space out their tables. Every restaurant I would go to, they would have severely limited the amount of people who could be in their place because of the, you know, they separate this table six feet apart and everything else. What about companies that may have received PPP? Can they qualify for ERC? They can. I want to go back to the qualification.

So if you did have revenue decreases, I did not mention that. That will qualify you. But again, if you had revenue increases you can still qualify as far as ppp if you did receive ppp and most of the folks that i talked to did receive ppp and it was forgiven they will qualify as well in fact they're more likely to qualify if they receive ppp really yeah wow Yeah. Wow. Well, that's good. It's good that there's stuff out here because a lot of people, I mean, there are people who lost their companies they built their whole life.

There were restaurants that were 100 years old in San Francisco that went out of business. So what is the process for qualifying and how do you know if you can qualify, I guess. You send me an email at michaelatercplanning.com or call me or text me 314-503-5153. We'll talk to your situation. We'll make an appointment and go through the questionnaire. That takes about 15 minutes. You may, you will then be asked to upload some documents. And, you know, quite frankly, if you have your records together, it's about a 30 minute process. Yeah. So which, which set of books do I send in?

That's an entrepreneur joke. The ones you feel the, the ones you have put down the correct numbers. Oh, there we go. I like that answer. That's an entrepreneur joke, especially if you run a cash business, I think. That's what I hear. I'd never run a cash business, but I hear that.

So what about, can you just have your CPA or an accountant do it, or do you have to do it yourself? Sure, sure. There's 200-plus pages of IRS guidelines that Congress mandated IRS to come up with this program. I have read those 200 pages several times, several times. Okay. Let me tell you, it's not the most scintillating reading in the world, but it does explain how the program works. Now, if your CPA accountant wants to use you as an experiment and try to get the ERC payroll tax refund,

go for it. And that's not their lane. They don't deal with payroll taxes. They deal with your corporate tax return or in the nonprofit world, your 4,990. They don't deal with payroll taxes. So this is what this is about is your quarterly $941 payroll taxes. You know, it's not their lane. And plus your accountant is going to charge you accountant fees, accountant hourly bill rates. Very true. Yeah, and he's going to do it on his own time. He's going to be like, I'm busy doing account stuff, but I'll get to that when I can get to that. So yeah, just go directly to professionals

and people that know how to do this. I was surprised by this. I didn't know there was a program that was out there like this for businesses. So this is really cool. Why don't more people know about it? Like I did. That's an excellent question. Our government does many things well. Unfortunately, one of the things that we have not publicized well, in my opinion, and send it in to receive their checks. PPP in the beginning was the program that was pushed quite a bit. That's what you read about in the news. Yeah, that was huge. Yeah.

And hearing you say that you did not know about PPP, I'm sorry, about ER. Yeah. I mean, Chris, I listened to your podcast. You have really smart people on. You're really smart. Hearing you say that tells me that there's an estimated 30 million small businesses and nonprofits in this country. We have reached a fraction of these people to get this $400 billion back in their hands. Wow. Yeah. Well, it's good.

It's good. It's good that we get this awareness out there so that people can know more about it and stuff. Of course, we're live on LinkedIn and we'll probably put this in the LinkedIn newsletter. So, you know, people that are companies and owners and stuff. So if you didn't keep employees for the entire time, you're still eligible for whatever they decide they want to do. Even if you close your business down, you might be able to get some funds back. What are the limits on what an organization can do with the funds? Is there a limit? There is no limitation on what a business can do with those funds. A business owner can pay themselves back or any of the stockholders back. A nonprofit can use it for unrestricted funds, which nonprofits, that's the big deal with nonprofits.

They never get unrestricted funds. It's always earmarked for a specific program or a specific initiative. Was the PPP the same way you had to use it for payroll? You had to use it for payroll. I don't know all the ins and outs of PPP the same way you had to use it for payroll? You had to use it for payroll. I don't know all the ins and outs of PPP. I know that it was an onerous process. ERC is not an onerous process, especially because I guide you through it. And, you know, I've got 20 letters and 20 folks of my 100 clients, 150 clients that are sending me, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.

And I'm so thrilled to get those because yeah, this is how I'm earning a living right now. And it really helps me sleep well at night. I had a guy on the other day, retail establishment, small. He got what was for him a significant amount of money. This is going to save his business. This is going to save his house because he wasn't able to pay himself. And he's not going to have to file bankruptcy. It's huge. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, there's so many people just got trashed in this, in this, these last two years. And, you know, what about people that are struggling with, you know, the competition is really high, got really high for employees where, you know, there were some companies I know that like even our local gas stations, they had to quit being open 24 seven because they couldn't hire people because it was, you know, there was hiring everybody. Right. Amazon was buying out everybody. Right. Right. Yeah. That's, it's, it's interesting you mentioned Amazon.

That's very true. As far as the employee shortage or the, you know, folks not wanting to take some jobs, that could be a capacity issue depending on the government mandates. So again, I just urge folks to call me and we'll talk it through. Okay. How much money can you usually get for each employee and maybe average per business or nonprofit? Sure.

The maximum amount per employee, a W-2 employee that works 30 hours a week or more, is $26,000. Wow. Yeah. It's huge. It's huge. Yeah. The average business or nonprofit gets about $225,000 to $250,000 back. Wow. Yeah. And one of my colleagues just qualified a construction company for $24 million. And the way they did that was they not only had the 30 hour full-time employees, but they had a number of part-time employees as well. Wow.

Wow. So that is huge, dude. I mean, you know, so many people took a beating, like I mentioned, how long does the process take from start to I mean, you know, so many people took a beating, like I mentioned.

How long does the process take from start to finish to, you know, see checks from application? Sure. Once you make an appointment with me, once you upload the documents that we need to process your ERC claim, that takes about two or three weeks to go through all of the line-by-line payroll reports. After that, it will be sent in to the IRS. The IRS is taking four to six to eight months, depending on factors that I have no idea. The IRS. Sorry. But, right. The IRS, I know, is overloaded with a ton of not only tax returns now because of the extensions, but also the claim for ERC.

Well, that's the one downside, I guess. But, I mean, you get money that you lost and may never recover unless you go after it. So you might as well. Yeah. Yeah. This is life-changing. This is life-changing. This is life-changing money. And quite frankly, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

And I will say this, we don't know when this is going to end. I mean, there is a hard stop for part of it in 2023 for part of it in 2023, for part of it. So, you know, the sooner the better as far as getting your application and answering the questionnaire and starting the process. It is so much easier than people think. And that's why I urge people to call me. So again, we don't know when this is going to end. PPP is out of money. They're done. And you get a check and not a credit, right? So you get a big check in the mail. There you go. Yes, you get a check. So that's one of the benefits as well. This is awesome. So what have you been told in the past you don't qualify for it? You were told you may not qualify. How does that apply to you? Well, and that may have been true at one time.

Congress has expanded the eligibility for qualifications at least four times. We got additional guidance in June of 2022, but they have expanded the guidance four times. So originally, nonprofits were not part of this. They're now part of it. And quite frankly, should have been from the beginning. Let's see. Revenue, a revenue issue, whether it goes up or down, was originally not part of it. Supply chain issue was originally not part of it. Closures, partial or full, originally were not part of it. All of these things now are included. I just hit my mic. Sorry about that. All of these things are now part of the program. So, and again, I think that's part of the reason why a lot of people don't know or are confused. So again, if they were advised at

one time that they were not eligible, that could have been true at the time. I urge every business owner or leader or CFO and every nonprofit leadership CFO. I had a development guy in a nonprofit call me the other day. He went through the process. They qualified for over $200,000. I thought the guy was going to kiss me. I was thrilled, so thrilled to be able to continue their mission. Right? So, yeah.

There you go. There you go. It's great that this business around. So one of the three ways that you can qualify again, let's recap on this. goods or services to make your final product to then sell, that is one way to qualify. If there was a significant delay, that could be a qualifier as well in getting your supplies. Secondly is a partial or full closure. Whether you were a restaurant or a doctor's office my dentist only had one person in the waiting room at a time now there usually are 10 wow at a time right so that was a partial close actually almost a full closure quite frankly and that was a government mandate revenue decreases based on one quarter versus another quarter in 2019. There's two ways to qualify with revenue decreases. But again, I want to stress, even if you had more increases,

you could still qualify for life-changing money through the employee retention credit. This is awesome. This is awesome. So how much does this cost? I mean, imagine you being involved, there might be some sort of compensation. Sure, sure. Absolutely. There is no fee for filling out the questionnaire. There's no fee for sending in your documentation. And there's no fee for our forensic tax accountants, our tax attorneys, and former agents, I guess, going through line by line by line to make sure what we originally estimated on the questionnaire is either accurate or if you are eligible for a higher amount, which is typically the case. Because the actual physical 941s tell a different story than what someone

can remember. So you'll get that number. That's the number that is a solid number that can be turned into the IRS. No charge for any of it. Okay. Awesome. Yeah. And that comes in two to three weeks. Then after the IRS sends you your refunds four to six, eight months away, you will be charged. The fee for this service is 15%.

Now, if you want to say 5%, you can pay that up front. In other words, if you pay 10% up front, you can do that and not owe anything on the end. And it's about half and half with my clients. Half and half. Yeah. There you go. Yeah. It's good to save a few bucks here and there.

And then what does the fee cover? Give us a rundown on that. Sure. Well, as I said, it covers all of the backend work with the forensic tax accountants, with all of the auditors that they have on staff with the tax attorneys to make sure that what they are qualified for meets the guidelines. They go through with a fine-tooth comb. I am 110% confident that the folks that I work with are doing a job that makes you absolutely qualify for the amount they

say you qualified for. As long as we've been told the correct information, you qualify for that amount. Awesome. Yeah. This just great. So this is good. You guys do all the due diligence back-end work and make sure that everything is up to snuff and probably, you know, make sure their application is going to get approved and they've met all the requirements, right? Right. And, and, you know, that's, that raises another good point. If for some reason we cannot qualify you, which happens 2% of the time, if that, there's no fee whatsoever. Quite frankly, we're educating people. We're hoping that people spread the word.

So it's very important that people know about ERC. One of the reasons why I'm thrilled to be on your show today. There you go. There you go. This is really awesome. And I'm glad you're shining a light on this and getting the word out there because people need to know. I mean, they really do. This is pretty amazing and it's money. And people, they really took a beating during the last two

years. It costs everybody money to do business. And sadly, there was a lot of business loss. They were great businesses. Anything more we need to do, thoughts or comments before we go out? You know, the last thing I want to say is if you have any question in your mind, if you don't understand, if I've not made clear what the process is, call me. I'm happy to talk to anyone and everyone about this program. It's again, like you said, it's not been publicized. So my personal mission is to spread the word. It's life changing money. It's keeping several people out of bankruptcy, keeping that in their homes because these business owners have put up everything.

Nonprofit leaders have had to change their mission. They were not able to do some of the services, you know, so it's affected our entire economy. So if long story short, any questions whatsoever, please call me, please email me. I'm happy to talk with you and I look forward to qualifying you. There you go. Give us that email one more time, Michael. Sure. It's michael at ercplanning.com. And my phone number, which you can also text is 314-503-5153. There you go. Amazing stuff. If you know a business owner or somebody who lost money in coronavirus too,

please shovel this information over to them. Tell them to check it out and get to know it because I know there's so many people that have been affected by this. It's crazy. Well, Michael, we certainly appreciate having you on the show. Thank you very much for coming by and teaching us something new today. Okay. Yeah. Thank you, Chris. I appreciate you helping us spread the word. There the show. Thank you very much for coming by and teaching us something new today. Okay. Yeah.

Thank you, Chris. I appreciate you helping us spread the word. There you go. Thank you. And thanks to my audience for tuning in. Be sure to go to goodreads.com, 4Chess, Chris Voss, youtube.com, 4Chess, Chris Voss, all our groups on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, all those crazy places the kids are playing.

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