The federal Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and Employee Retention Tax Credit (ERTC) were supposed to serve as financial lifelines during the COVID-19 pandemic—and they did for many businesses. But, fraud under both of these programs also proved to be a significant issue, with conservative estimates putting the total cost of PPP and ERTC fraud in the tens of billions of dollars.

The Employee Retention Credit (ERC) was a limited-time credit offered to qualifying businesses for the 2020 and 2021 tax years. Unfortunately, similar to the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and other pandemic-relief programs, the ERC proved to be a target for widespread fraud. As a result, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has been scrutinizing the returns of businesses that claimed this refundable credit—and it is continuing to do so in 2023.