As you may recall, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Tax Act of 2009 expands the Work Opportunity Tax Credit Program to include two new eligibility categories — Disconnected Youth and Unemployed Veterans.
We reported on May 29 that the IRS issued an updated Form 8850 (“Pre-Screening Notice and Certification Request for the Work Opportunity Credit”) that now includes the new categories. At the same time, the IRS also issued “statutory” definitions of the categories, helping us to identify qualifying employees. This action by the IRS, however, gives us only half of what employers need in order to certify employees under the new WOTC categories.
The other half of the equations must be provided by the U.S. Department of Labor. We have been regularly checking the Department of Labor’s website for any guidance on implementation of the new WOTC Categories. Eventually the DOL will issue an ETA Advisory called a “Training & Employment Guidance Letter” or “TEGL” providing formal guidance to WOTC certifying units nation wide.
To date, nothing has been issued. Our contact at the California WOTC Unit confirmed that indeed, the units are still not able to issue eligibility certificates for either of the new categories. In the mean time, RestaWOTC will continue to screen employees for the new categories. We won’t expect to receive certifications for eligible Disconnected Youth or Unemployed Veterans, however, until later this year. Stay tuned and we will keep you posted.
Still Waiting for DOL Guidance for New WOTC Categories
