Section 2302 of the CARES act

[LD35]

I received an IRS letter (3064C) stating that I had deferred $2,987.00 from 2020 (something from section 2302 of the CARES act).  If I did this, it was not intentional.  I do not know how they came up with this number, and I am self-employed and do not pay into Social Security.  I do not think I owe anything.  How do I get this cleared?

[rjs]

The IRS letter calls it Social Security tax, but it's referring to the Social Security portion of your self-employment tax. The CARES Act allows someone with self-employment income on their 2020 tax return to defer paying part of the Social Security tax that's included in the self-employment tax, if certain requirements are met. Whether it was intentional or not, you did defer paying it. The deferral appears as a refundable credit on Schedule 3 line 12e of your 2020 tax return. It was subtracted from the tax you had to pay with your tax return. The only way to "clear" it is to pay the tax that you deferred. Half the deferred tax is due December 31, 2021, and the remainder is due December 31, 2022.

TurboTax asked whether you wanted to defer the tax. If you clicked Yes it went on to calculate the maximum amount you could defer, and then asked you how much you wanted to defer.

[Mike9241]

if you are self-employed and have self-employment income you are paying self-employment taxes - schedule  1040-SE. the act allowed deferral of some of the SE tax you owed for 2020. 50% of the deferral is due on or before 12/31/2021 the balance by 12/31/202. for the total deferral look at schedule 3 line 13e or the SE schedule line 26.  it may be that Turbotax did an extremely poor job of explaining what you were doing when it ask about your SE income - enter the portion of line 3 that can be attributed to March 27, 2020, through December 31, 2020. that's the section referred to. 

[Critter-3]

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