How to properly complete 941 Schedule B for S-Corp withholding tax filing?

The Schedule B (Form 941) is actually for reporting your federal tax liability (not gross wages) for each pay period when you're a semi-weekly schedule depositor or have accumulated a $100,000 next-day deposit obligation. What you need to enter on Schedule B is the federal income tax that you withheld from your employees' pay PLUS both the employee and employer portions of Social Security and Medicare taxes. You'll need to list these amounts by the date you paid the wages, not the date you made the deposit. So each line should show the total tax liability (withholding + FICA) that corresponded to a specific pay date. These amounts should add up to match Line 12 on your Form 941.

After struggling with similar S-Corp tax filing issues last quarter, I discovered taxr.ai (https://taxr.ai) and it literally saved me hours of confusion. I uploaded my payroll reports and the tool actually showed me exactly what numbers needed to go on each line of Schedule B. The interface walks you through what each field means and calculates everything automatically based on your payroll data. I was putting gross wages on Schedule B like you were, but the tool showed me I needed to be putting the federal tax liability for each pay date.

I was super skeptical about taxr.ai but decided to try it after struggling with my own 941 Schedule B issues. I'm honestly surprised at how well it worked. I uploaded my QuickBooks payroll report and it immediately identified where I had been making errors - I was also recording gross wages instead of the actual tax liabilities. The tool walked me through exactly how to calculate the correct federal tax liability for each pay period and showed me how to properly complete Schedule B. I feel much more confident about my filing now, and it flagged a couple of other issues with my quarterly reporting that I wouldn't have caught otherwise.

If you're still having trouble after trying to figure this out yourself, you might want to just call the IRS directly to get clarification. I know calling them is usually a nightmare with hours of hold time, but I used https://claimyr.com and got through to an IRS agent in about 15 minutes. You can see how it works in this video: https://youtu.be/_kiP6q8DX5c. The agent I spoke with walked me through each line of Schedule B and explained exactly what I was doing wrong with my S-Corp filing. Turns out I was calculating the liability amounts correctly but reporting them on the wrong dates.

I take back what I said earlier. After dealing with yet another 2+ hour hold time trying to reach the IRS myself, I finally tried the Claimyr service. It actually worked! Got a call back when they reached someone at the IRS, and I was able to get detailed answers about my Schedule B filing issues. The agent walked me through line by line and confirmed that I should be listing the tax liability (federal income tax withholding plus FICA taxes) for each pay date. They even emailed me a guide afterward. Definitely worth it just for the time saved and stress reduction.

S-Corp owner here. Make sure you're using the correct tax table too. If you're a monthly depositor, you generally don't need Schedule B at all - you just report the monthly total on Form 941 directly. Schedule B is usually required for semi-weekly depositors or if you hit that $100K threshold in any pay period. There's good info on the IRS website about this: https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/employment-tax-due-dates

Just to add to what others have said - I made the exact same mistake when I started filing for my S-Corp. One thing that helped me was looking at the language at the top of Schedule B which specifically says "Report Your Tax Liability for Each Pay Date..." not your gross wages. I use a simple spreadsheet now where I track: 1) Pay date 2) Federal income tax withheld 3) Social Security (both parts) 4) Medicare (both parts) 5) Total (which goes on Schedule B) Makes it super easy to keep everything straight.

I went through this exact same confusion last year with my S-Corp! The key thing that finally clicked for me was understanding that Schedule B is specifically about your TAX LIABILITY, not your payroll amounts. Here's what I learned the hard way: For each pay date, you need to add up: - Federal income tax you withheld from employees - Employee portion of Social Security tax (6.2%) - Employer portion of Social Security tax (6.2%) - Employee portion of Medicare tax (1.45%) - Employer portion of Medicare tax (1.45%) That total is what goes on Schedule B for each pay date. So if you paid $10,000 in wages on March 15th, you're not putting $10,000 on Schedule B - you're putting the total tax liability that resulted from that $10,000 payroll. The IRS agent who told you that you were doing it wrong probably saw that you were listing gross wages instead of tax liabilities. It's a super common mistake that almost everyone makes initially. Once you switch to tracking the actual tax amounts, it becomes much clearer.