After a hiatus for nearly all of 2015, the Work Opportunity Tax Credit (WOTC) has been extended for five years from January 1, 2015 through December 31, 2019
This extension was driven by the passage of the Omnibus Spending Bill which includes the PATH Act (Protecting Americans from Tax Hikes Act of 2015). This Act extends certain expired (December 31, 2014) business tax provisions, including the Indian Employment Credit (IEC) and Empowerment Zones (EZ), for two years, and adds a new category to WOTC – long term unemployed.
The new long term unemployed target group is defined as individuals who begin work after December 31, 2015 and are unemployed for not less than 27 consecutive weeks and received unemployment compensation for a period of time under State or Federal law. The effective date for this new category is January 1, 2016.
To ensure that we capture this new category, we have added questions to our screening technology.