Use Form 941-SS if your principal place of business is in American Samoa, Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, or the U.S. Virgin Islands, or if you have employees who are subject to income tax withholding for these jurisdictions.
Use Form 941-SS to report the following amounts:
Wages you’ve paid.
Tips your employees reported to you.
Both the employer and the employee share of social security and Medicare taxes.
Additional Medicare Tax withheld from employees.
Current quarter's adjustments to social security and Medicare taxes for fractions of cents, sick pay, tips, and group-term life insurance.
Qualified small business payroll tax credit for increasing research activities.
Credit for qualified sick and family leave wages paid in 2022 for leave taken after March 31, 2020, and before October 1, 2021.
Credit for COBRA premium assistance payments.
Don't use Form 941-SS if you have both employees who are subject to U.S. income tax withholding and employees who aren't subject to U.S. income tax withholding. Instead, you must file only Form 941 (or Form 944) and include all of your employees' wages on that form.
Don't use Form 941-SS to report backup withholding or income tax withholding on nonpayroll payments such as pensions, annuities, and gambling winnings. Report these types of withholding on Form 945, Annual Return of Withheld Federal Income Tax. Also, don't use Form 941-SS to report unemployment taxes. Report unemployment taxes (U.S. Virgin Islands employers only) on Form 940, Employer's Annual Federal Unemployment (FUTA) Tax Return.
After you file your first Form 941-SS, you must file a return each quarter, even if you have no taxes to report, unless you filed a final return or one of the exceptions listed next applies.
Exceptions
Special rules apply to some employers.
If you received notification to file Form 944, you must file Form 944 annually; don't file Form 941-SS quarterly.
Seasonal employers don't have to file a Form 941-SS for quarters in which they have no tax liability because they have paid no wages. To tell the IRS that you won't file a return for one or more quarters during the year, check the box on line 18 every quarter you file Form 941-SS. The IRS generally won't inquire about unfiled returns if at least one taxable return is filed each year. However, you must check the box on line 18 on every quarterly return you file. Otherwise, the IRS will expect a return to be filed for each quarter.
Employers of household employees don't usually file Form 941-SS. See Pub. 80, Pub. 926, and Schedule H (Form 1040) for more information.
Employers of farm employees don't file Form 941-SS for wages paid for agricultural labor. See Form 943 and Pub. 51 for more information.
If none of these exceptions apply and you haven't filed a final return, you must file Form 941-SS each quarter even if you didn't pay wages during the quarter. Use IRS e-file, if possible.
Requesting To File Forms 941-SS Instead of Form 944, or Requesting To File Form 944 Instead of Forms 941-SS
Requesting to file Forms 941-SS instead of Form 944.
Employers in American Samoa, Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and the U.S. Virgin Islands that would otherwise be required to file Form 944, Employer's ANNUAL Federal Tax Return, may contact the IRS to request to file quarterly Forms 941-SS instead of annual Form 944. To request to file quarterly Forms 941-SS to report your social security and Medicare taxes for the 2022 calendar year, you must either call the IRS at 800-829-4933 toll free (U.S. Virgin Islands only) or 267-941-1000 (toll call) between January 1, 2022, and April 1, 2022, or send a written request postmarked between January 1, 2022, and March 15, 2022. After you contact the IRS, the IRS will send you a written notice that your filing requirement has been changed to Forms 941-SS. You must receive written notice from the IRS to file Forms 941-SS instead of Form 944 before you may file these forms. If you don't receive this notice, you must file Form 944 for calendar year 2022.
Requesting to file Form 944 instead of Forms 941-SS.
PEOs
CPEOs must generally file Form 941-SS and Schedule R (Form 941), Allocation Schedule for Aggregate Form 941 Filers, electronically. For more information about a CPEO’s requirement to file electronically, see Rev. Proc. 2017-14, 2017-3 I.R.B. 426, available at IRS.gov/irb/2017-03_IRB#RP-2017-14.