The Treasury and IRS have published final regulations governing federal income tax withholding from periodic payments of deferred income made after December 31, 2020. The new regulations follow changes made by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (TCJA) to the default withholding rate rules. Payors and plan administrators who hoped that the IRS would set out predictable and uniform standards will be disappointed: while the regulations remove the pre-TCJA default withholding rate, they do not replace it with a new default rate. Instead, the Commissioner of the IRS will be responsible for providing sub-regulatory guidance to determine the default rate. At least for calendar year 2021 distributions, however, there appears to be no need for payors and plan administrators to worry about the transition to a new default-rate-determination method.
Continue Reading IRS Final Regulations on Default Withholding Rates for Periodic Deferred Income Distributions: No Changes for 2021, but Future Rates Not Clarified