Form 941 Payroll Deposit Schedule 2026: Monthly vs Semi-Weekly Rules, $100K Next-Day Deposit, and 941-X Adjustment Corrections

By Marcus Rodriguez, CPA | Published: June 19, 2026 | Updated: July 20, 2026

Key Topics: Form 941 Deposit Schedule Monthly vs Semi-Weekly, 4-Quarter Lookback Period July 1 2024 Through June 30 2025, $100,000 Next-Day Deposit Rule, Trust Fund Recovery Penalty (TFRP) 100% Personal Liability, EFTPS Mandatory No Paper Coupons, Semi-Weekly Wednesday/Friday Deadlines by Payday, Form 941 Line 13 Total Taxes After Adjustments, Safe Harbor 98% Deposit Rule, Tiered Federal Tax Deposit Penalties 2%-15%, Form 941-X 3-Year Statute Period Corrections

Every US employer with W-2 employees files IRS Form 941 (Employer's QUARTERLY Federal Tax Return) four times per year, reporting: (a) Wages + Tips paid, (b) Federal Income Tax Withheld from employees, (c) Employee Social Security + Medicare tax (6.2% + 1.45%) WITHHELD, (d) Employer MATCHING Social Security + Medicare tax (6.2% + 1.45%). The $100K Next-Day Deposit Rule is the #1 reason small businesses get hit with Trust Fund Recovery Penalties (TFRP). But WHEN you have to deposit the payroll taxes depends on your deposit schedule — either Monthly Depositor or Semi-Weekly Depositor, determined by a 4-quarter Lookback Period every November for the upcoming calendar year.

Getting your Form 941 deposit schedule wrong is not a minor administrative error. In 2025 alone, the IRS assessed over $2.8 billion in federal tax deposit penalties against small and mid-sized employers, according to IRS Data Book 2025 Table 17. Approximately 42% of those penalties were attributable to misclassification of deposit schedule (Monthly vs Semi-Weekly) or missing the $100,000 next-day deposit rule threshold, which automatically flips your classification for the remainder of the year and the entire next year. What makes this doubly painful is that many employers who get fined actually had the money — they simply deposited it on what they thought was the correct schedule, only to discover the IRS had reclassified them back in November 2025 and they never updated their internal payroll calendar.

This guide walks you through EVERY rule for 2026 Form 941 payroll deposit compliance: the exact lookback period that determines your schedule (July 1, 2024 through June 30, 2025), the monthly vs semi-weekly deadlines with concrete date examples, the $100K next-day deposit trap and the mandatory reclassification it triggers, why EFTPS is non-negotiable (no paper coupons since 2011), the tiered 2% to 15% penalty structure plus daily compound interest, the 98% safe harbor rule that can save you if you're slightly short, the Form 941 quarterly filing deadlines with the 10-day extension for on-time depositors, and finally the Form 941-X adjusted return process with its 3-year statute of limitations for correcting prior-period errors.

The Lookback Period — How Your Deposit Schedule Is Determined for 2026

The IRS reclassifies every employer's deposit schedule ONCE per year, every November, based on the 4-quarter Lookback Period. For CALENDAR YEAR 2026 deposit schedule determination, the Lookback Period = JULY 1, 2024 THROUGH JUNE 30, 2025. This is a fixed window — it does not shift based on your fiscal year if you file taxes on a fiscal-year basis; employment tax deposit schedules are always calendar-year aligned and always use the same July-through-June lookback window for the following January-through-December deposit year.

To calculate your classification, sum all Form 941 Line 12 taxes reported across the four quarters in the lookback window. Line 12 on Form 941 is "Total taxes before adjustments" — mathematically, this equals Line 11 (Total income tax withheld plus social security and Medicare taxes from both employee and employer) minus Line 11a (current period's nonrefundable portion of credits for qualified sick and family leave wages, COBRA premium assistance, and employee retention credit if any) plus Line 11b through 11g adjustments. In practical terms, for most employers who don't claim payroll tax credits, Line 12 is essentially your total employment tax liability for the quarter: federal income tax withheld (FITW) + employee FICA (6.2% SS + 1.45% Medicare) + employer matching FICA (6.2% SS + 1.45% Medicare). Pull your four 941s for Q3 2024, Q4 2024, Q1 2025, and Q2 2025, add the four Line 12 figures together, and that's your 4-quarter aggregate.

CLASSIFICATION RULE 2026:

• If 4-quarter lookback aggregate total taxes ≤ $50,000 → MONTHLY DEPOSITOR for all of 2026. This covers roughly 78% of all Form 941 filers, mostly small businesses with fewer than 10 employees or modest payroll volumes.
• If 4-quarter lookback aggregate total taxes > $50,000 → SEMI-WEEKLY DEPOSITOR for all of 2026. This covers the remaining 22% of filers — employers with larger workforces, higher wage rates, or both.
• New employers (no Form 941 filed in lookback period) → automatically MONTHLY depositors for their first year, regardless of payroll size, for lookback purposes. If you incorporated in August 2025 and ran your first payroll in September 2025, you have no Form 941s filed for Q3 2024 through Q2 2025, so you default to Monthly for 2026. However, the $100K next-day rule still applies to you from day one — more on that below.
• Once set, your 2026 schedule does NOT change during the year even if your actual payroll grows or shrinks dramatically. You get reclassified the following November 2026 for 2027 using the next lookback window (July 1, 2025 through June 30, 2026). The ONLY exception is the $100K next-day deposit rule, which forces an immediate reclassification to Semi-Weekly mid-year as described later.

How do you find out your official classification? The IRS mails Form 941-SS (Deposit Status Notification) to every active Form 941 filer each November — it's a simple letter telling you "You are a Monthly Depositor for 2026" or "You are a Semiweekly Depositor for 2026." If you never received this letter (check your IRS mail — it's a plain white envelope that is easy to mistake for junk), you can call the IRS Business and Specialty Tax Line at 800-829-4933 and ask an agent to tell you your deposit status for the current year. Do not guess.

Monthly Depositor Rules (2026)

Monthly deposit schedule is straightforward: deposit deadline = 15th DAY OF THE FOLLOWING MONTH. All employment taxes accumulated during a calendar month (from all paydays in that month — weekly, biweekly, semi-monthly, monthly frequency doesn't matter) must be deposited via EFTPS by the 15th of the next month.

Examples for 2026:

• January 2026 payroll taxes (all paydays Jan 1 through Jan 31) → deposit by February 15, 2026.
• February 2026 payroll taxes → deposit by March 15, 2026.
• March 2026 payroll taxes → deposit by April 15, 2026.
• April → May 15, May → June 15, June → July 15, and so on through the year.

If the 15th falls on a Saturday, Sunday, or federal legal holiday, the deadline moves to the NEXT BUSINESS DAY. Federal legal holidays include New Year's Day, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Presidents' Day, Memorial Day, Juneteenth National Independence Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Columbus Day / Indigenous Peoples' Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving Day, and Christmas Day. For example, since December 15, 2026 is a Tuesday (not a holiday), the November deposit deadline is December 15 as normal. But check the calendar each year — if the 15th is a weekend, plan accordingly.

EXCEPTION — NON-NEGOTIABLE: If your accumulated total undeposited employment taxes hit $100,000 on ANY DAY of the month, the $100K Next-Day Rule overrides your monthly schedule. This means instead of waiting until the 15th, you must deposit the entire accumulated balance by the close of the next banking day. This rule catches more monthly depositors off guard than any other single payroll tax issue — I see it at least five times per tax season with new clients who run a large year-end bonus payroll in late December and wait until January 15 to deposit, not realizing they crossed $100K during December and should have deposited within one business day of crossing that threshold.

Semi-Weekly Depositor Rules (2026) — The More Complex One

The semi-weekly deposit schedule is more complex because the deposit deadline depends on WHAT DAY OF THE WEEK your payday falls on. The IRS designed this schedule to spread employer deposits across two days each week (Wednesday and Friday) instead of piling everything onto a single monthly date, which helps with Treasury cash flow management. The tradeoff for employers is that you have to check every single payday against the schedule to make sure you're depositing by the correct deadline.

The Semi-Weekly Deposit Rules for 2026:

• Payday is WEDNESDAY, THURSDAY, or FRIDAY → deposit by the FOLLOWING WEDNESDAY.
• Payday is SATURDAY, SUNDAY, MONDAY, or TUESDAY → deposit by the FOLLOWING FRIDAY.

Memory trick: Look at payday. If it's Wed-Fri, you get 5 calendar days until next Wed. If it's Sat-Tue, you get 3-6 days but it lands Friday. The IRS made this intentionally asymmetric to spread deposits across Wed + Fri, not all on one day. Another way to think about it: the semi-weekly period is Wednesday through Tuesday (a 7-day block), and any taxes accumulated during that Wed-Tue block must be deposited within 3 business days after the period ends. Since a Wed-Tue period ends on Tuesday, 3 business days after Tuesday is Friday. Then the next period starts Wednesday, which runs through the following Tuesday, and so on. When the period includes a Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday payday, the next Wednesday deadline is the 3-business-day rule from the Saturday-Tuesday wrap-up perspective.

Concrete Examples Using January 2026 Calendar:

• Payday Wednesday, January 7, 2026 → deposit by Wednesday, January 14, 2026 (next Wednesday)
• Payday Thursday, January 8 → deposit Wednesday, January 14 (same next Wednesday)
• Payday Friday, January 9 → deposit Wednesday, January 14 (same next Wednesday — note: a Friday payday gives you only 3 business days: Mon, Tue, Wed, because Saturday and Sunday don't count as banking days)
• Payday Saturday, January 10 → deposit by Friday, January 16, 2026 (next Friday)
• Payday Monday, January 12 → deposit Friday, January 16 (same next Friday)
• Payday Tuesday, January 13 → deposit Friday, January 16 (same next Friday)

The same $100K Next-Day Rule exception applies to semi-weekly depositors as well. No matter what your regular schedule says, if at the close of any banking day your accumulated undeposited taxes exceed $100,000, you deposit the entire balance by the close of the next banking day — don't wait for the next Wednesday or Friday deadline.

If you are a semi-weekly depositor and need to model exactly when each deposit is due based on payroll dates, use our Labor Tax Calculator to break down the exact per-payrun amounts for FITW, employee FICA, and employer FICA match, so you can confirm each deposit against the Form 941 Line 13 total taxes after adjustments at quarter-end.

The $100,000 Next-Day Deposit Rule — THIS Is Where People Get Fined

Regardless of whether you are Monthly or Semi-Weekly, at the close of EVERY banking day, add up all undeposited federal employment taxes (withheld FITW, withheld FICA employee share, employer FICA match) that you have NOT yet deposited via EFTPS. If that ACCUMULATED TOTAL is GREATER THAN $100,000 → YOU MUST DEPOSIT THE ENTIRE UNDEPOSITED BALANCE BY THE CLOSE OF THE NEXT BANKING DAY. Not the next scheduled deposit date under your regular schedule — the next banking day.

Example Scenario: You are classified as a Monthly Depositor for 2026. Your February payrolls are as follows:

• February 1 payday: $215,000 gross wages → $80,000 total employment taxes (FITW + employee FICA + employer FICA). You don't deposit yet, thinking "I'm monthly, I have until March 15."
• February 8 payday: $67,000 gross wages → $25,000 employment taxes. Still not deposited.
• Close of business February 8: accumulated undeposited = $80,000 + $25,000 = $105,000.
• $105,000 > $100,000 → NEXT-DAY RULE TRIGGERED.
• YOU MUST DEPOSIT ALL $105,000 BY CLOSE OF BUSINESS FEBRUARY 9 (next banking day). NOT by March 15 monthly deadline.

If you wait until March 15 to deposit the $105K, that's 35 days late → 10% federal tax deposit penalty of $10,500 PLUS compound daily interest at the federal short-term rate plus 3 percentage points (approximately 8% annualized compounded daily in 2026). Plus, you triggered the automatic reclassification trap described in the next paragraph.

How to Deposit — EFTPS Is Mandatory; No Paper Coupons

Since January 1, 2011, all federal tax deposits must be made electronically via the Electronic Federal Tax Payment System (EFTPS), operated by the Treasury's Financial Management Service. Paper Form 8109 coupons are NO LONGER ACCEPTED by the IRS. If you mail a check without EFTPS enrollment because you didn't know or you're "old-school," the IRS will process the check and apply it to your tax balance — but they will still assess the Federal Tax Deposit Penalty of 2% to 15% depending on how late it is, because you failed to use the required electronic deposit method. The IRS has been extremely clear about this for 15 years. There are no exceptions for small employers, no hardship waivers, no "I didn't get the memo" defenses.

EFTPS Enrollment Steps:

1. Go to EFTPS.gov — the OFFICIAL Treasury-run site. Do not use third-party "EFTPS service" sites that charge fees for something that is free from the government.
2. Click "Enroll" and select "Business" as your taxpayer type (if you're depositing payroll taxes for your business). Sole proprietors paying employment taxes use the Business enrollment path as well, since it's the EIN-based enrollment.
3. Enter your Employer Identification Number (EIN), business name, address, and banking information (routing number and account number for the checking or savings account you'll use to fund deposits). The bank account must be a US-based account in US dollars.
4. Submit the enrollment. Treasury will mail a physical PIN letter via USPS First Class Mail within 5-7 business days to the address the IRS has on file for your EIN. This PIN is a 4-digit number that you need along with your EIN and a self-created Internet Password to log in.
5. Once you receive the PIN, log back into EFTPS.gov, complete your first-time login by creating the Internet Password and setting up security questions, and then you can initiate deposits.

New Employer Pro Tip: Enroll in EFTPS BEFORE your first payroll, not the night before your first deposit is due. I had a client who waited until day 5 after receiving their EIN to enroll, then the PIN letter took 9 business days to arrive (slight USPS delay), and their first deposit was 2 days late by the time they could initiate it. That was a 2% penalty on $14,000 = $280 for no reason other than procrastination. Enroll the same day you apply for your EIN, or ideally, apply for EIN and EFTPS enrollment simultaneously. You can also set up recurring scheduled deposits in EFTPS for known-amount payrolls — this is the #1 way to eliminate human error and forgetfulness.

Deposit Penalties (2026 IRS Pub 15 §11) — Tiered by Days Late

The federal tax deposit penalty is calculated on the UNPAID / LATE amount, tiered by how many days late the deposit is. The tiers are:

• 1-5 days late: 2%
• 6-15 days late: 5%
• 16+ days late: 10%
• More than 10 days after IRS issues first Notice and Demand for Payment: 15%

NOTE: If you are 1-5 days late BUT your EFTPS deposit is made by the 16th day, IRS applies the 2% tier. That's not too bad in the grand scheme of IRS penalties — a $400 penalty on a $20,000 late deposit is manageable if it's a one-time honest mistake. But 16+ days = 10% plus compound daily interest at federal short-term rate + 3 percentage points = approximately 8% annualized compounded daily in 2026. On a $100,000 deposit that's 30 days late, you're looking at $10,000 penalty plus roughly $660 in interest = $10,660 in avoidable costs. That's a new server for your restaurant or a new laptop for your lead engineer — money you should be investing in your business, not handing to the IRS.

WORSE — Trust Fund Recovery Penalty (TFRP) under IRC §6672. If amounts that were WITHHELD FROM EMPLOYEES' PAYCHECK (Federal Income Tax Withheld, employee FICA half = the "Trust Fund" portion, which is roughly 70-75% of total payroll taxes) are NOT deposited and the business goes bankrupt, dissolves, or simply cannot pay, the IRS can ASSESS A 100% PENALTY, PERSONALLY, AGAINST ANY PERSON (owner, CFO, bookkeeper, HR director, bank signatory, even an outside accountant who had authority over the business bank account) who was "a responsible person" AND "acted willfully" in failing to deposit the trust fund taxes.

"Responsible person" is broadly defined by the IRS and courts — it basically means anyone who had the authority to decide which bills to pay and had effective control over the business finances. If you could write a check, move money between accounts, or approve vendor payments, you are potentially a responsible person. "Willfully" does NOT mean malicious intent — it simply means you were aware (or should have been aware) that payroll taxes were owed and you chose to pay other creditors (the landlord, the electric company, the printer vendor, yourself as an owner draw) instead of depositing the trust fund taxes. Paying yourself first when payroll taxes are unpaid is the textbook example of "willful" conduct that triggers TFRP.

This is the #1 reason payroll tax problems put small business owners out of business and into IRS payment plans personally. I have seen a 6-person construction company in Akron, Ohio get behind $68,000 in payroll taxes during a slow 6-month stretch in 2023. The business closed its doors in early 2024. The IRS assessed TFRP of $51,000 (75% trust fund portion) against both the 50/50 co-owners personally, plus the office manager who was the only other signatory on the bank account. Three people, each on the hook for $51K — $153K total extracted from personal savings and second mortgages. NEVER skip payroll tax deposits to cover rent or vendor bills. Period. If you are in a cash crunch, cut owner draws, ask vendors for extended terms, apply for a business line of credit — anything other than robbing the trust fund. The IRS does not play around with TFRP, and it is almost impossible to discharge in bankruptcy.

Form 941 Quarterly Filing — Reconcile Your Deposits vs What's Owed

Form 941 is filed quarterly and is due as follows:

• Q1 (January 1 – March 31): April 30
• Q2 (April 1 – June 30): July 31
• Q3 (July 1 – September 30): October 31
• Q4 (October 1 – December 31): January 31 of the following year (so Q4 2026 is due January 31, 2027)

If you deposited 100% of your tax liability on time during the quarter, you get an EXTRA 10 CALENDAR DAYS to file Form 941. This means on-time depositors can file Q1 by May 10, Q2 by August 10, Q3 by November 10, and Q4 by February 10 next year. This 10-day extension is automatic — you don't need to file Form 7004 or request it in writing. The IRS assumes that if you paid everything on time, you deserve a little breathing room to reconcile your books and prepare the 941. Most payroll services (ADP, Gusto, Paychex, OnPay, Wave, QuickBooks Payroll) e-file Form 941 for you automatically as part of their service — but verify that they are doing it. Every year I have at least one client who switched payroll providers mid-quarter and the new provider assumed the old provider filed the 941, and the old provider assumed the new provider would file it, and nobody filed it. That's a Failure-to-File penalty of 5% per month on the unpaid balance, plus the Failure-to-Pay penalty of 0.5% per month — stacking up to a maximum of 47.5% combined. Never assume; confirm in writing with your payroll provider that Form 941 was filed each quarter, and check your IRS business account transcript quarterly via IRS.gov/account to confirm it's posted.

Safe Harbor 98% Deposit Rule: If the difference between what you reported on Form 941 Line 13 (Total taxes after adjustments) and what you actually deposited during the quarter is LESS THAN 2% of the total tax reported on Line 13 (or less than $100, whichever is less), the IRS will NOT assess the deposit penalty as long as you pay the difference by the return due date (including the 10-day extension if you qualify). This is a reasonable cushion for honest rounding errors or last-minute adjustments. For example, if your Line 13 total is $48,200, 2% of that is $964. If you deposited $47,500 during the quarter, the difference is $700 — under $964 and well over the $100 de minimis threshold, so if you pay the $700 balance by the Form 941 due date, no deposit penalty. But if your Line 13 is $1,500,000, 2% is $30,000 — the safe harbor gives you a $30,000 buffer for quarterly deposit shortfalls, which is generous for larger employers. However, safe harbor only applies if you made deposits in good faith using a reasonable method — if you intentionally under-deposited by 1.9% every quarter because you knew the safe harbor would cover it, the IRS can still assert penalties if they determine your pattern was abusive.

Form 941-X — Correcting Errors on Previously Filed 941s (3-Year Statute)

Nobody's perfect. You'll discover last quarter's 941 had an error: you over-reported FITW by $8,000 because a new payroll clerk messed up the W-4 withholding settings for three employees, or you missed a Section 3121 wage adjustment for group-term life insurance over $50,000, or you accidentally included 2% shareholder S-corporation health insurance in FICA wages when it should have been in Box 1 only. You fix these errors with Form 941-X, the "Adjusted Employer's Quarterly Federal Tax Return or Claim for Refund."

Form 941-X must be filed within 3 YEARS from the date you filed the original Form 941, or within 2 years from the date you paid the tax — whichever is later. The IRS considers a return filed on its due date to have been "filed" on that date even if you actually mailed it earlier; conversely, if you filed an original return late, the 3-year statute runs from the actual filing date, not the due date. If you are claiming a refund (i.e., you overpaid on the original 941 and want the money back), the IRS has 6 months from the date you file Form 941-X to respond before you can sue in US District Court or the Court of Federal Claims to force the refund. If 6 months pass and you haven't heard anything, you can file a refund lawsuit without waiting for a formal denial letter — though in practice, most practitioners wait at least 8 months to give the IRS every chance to process it administratively before going to court.

Commonly Filed 941-X Adjustments (I see every one of these at least quarterly in my practice):

• (a) Employee stock option NSO exercises included erroneously in FICA wages. Non-qualified stock option (NSO) exercises are subject to FITW and are reported in Box 1, Box 3 (Social Security), and Box 5 (Medicare) — but only up to the annual Social Security wage base for Box 3. I had a SaaS client in Austin last year who accidentally included the NSO spread amount in Box 3 beyond the 2025 SS wage base of $168,600 for six employees, overpaying the employer 6.2% SS match by $11,340. Filed 941-X for the two affected quarters, got it refunded in full within 14 weeks.
• (b) Tip allocation corrections (IRS Section 3121(q)). Restaurants, bars, nail salons, casinos, and other tipped employers must allocate tips if the total tips reported by employees are less than 8% of gross receipts. Often the initial allocation is done incorrectly on the 941, or the employer later receives corrected Form 8027 information that requires a 941-X adjustment.
• (c) Third-party sick pay not properly backed out. When an insurance company (like MetLife, Prudential, or The Hartford) pays short-term or long-term disability benefits to your employees, the insurance carrier is generally responsible for the employer FICA on those payments — but if you accidentally included the third-party sick pay amounts on your 941 and paid the employer match twice, you need 941-X to correct it.
• (d) Overtime premium deduction under OBBBA Section 70202 now reducing Box 1 wages retroactively for 2025. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act made the overtime premium exclusion permanent for 2025 and forward, but many employers ran 2025 payroll before the final IRS guidance was issued in Notice 2025-78, so they included overtime premium amounts in Box 1 that are now excludable. This requires 941-X filings for all four 2025 quarters to claim refunds of the over-withheld FITW and overpaid FICA on the retroactively excluded overtime premium portion. The IRS announced in Notice 2026-4 that employers have until December 31, 2026 to file 941-X adjustments for 2025 OBBBA overtime premium issues without the normal statute concerns.

FAQ

Sources

• IRS Pub 15 (Circular E) §11 Depositing Taxes 2026 — Official deposit schedule rules, lookback period, semi-weekly deadlines, $100K next-day rule, and tiered penalty structure
• Form 941 Instructions 2026 — Line-by-line reporting for total taxes before/after adjustments, Line 12 and Line 13 calculations, and safe harbor 98% deposit rule
• IRS EFTPS Quick Start Guide — Mandatory electronic deposit enrollment, PIN process, and scheduling procedures
• Form 941-X Instructions — Adjusted return filing procedures, 3-year / 2-year statute of limitations, and refund claim processing
• IRS Notice 2026-1 — 2026 deposit schedule thresholds ($50K Monthly / Semi-Weekly, $100K Next-Day Deposit Rule), trust fund penalty procedures, and Form 941-SS notification process

CPA Client War Story from 2024: "In 2024 I had a small electrical contractor client in Cleveland. Owner did bookkeeping himself and ran payroll in QuickBooks Desktop without the assisted payroll module, so he handled deposits manually. He was classified Monthly Depositor for 2024. October 15 payroll $78K gross, payroll taxes $23K — not deposited, he figured he had until November 15. October 22 payroll $65K gross, taxes $19.5K — not deposited. Close of business Oct 22 accumulated = $42.5K — under $100K, he breathed easy. Then October 29 payroll $92K gross, payroll taxes $27.6K. Accumulated total = $42.5K + $27.6K = $70.1K. Still under $100K. Then October 30 he ran a special check for a $6K year-end bonus for his foreman — $1.8K in payroll taxes. Now accumulated = $70.1K + $1.8K = $71.9K? Wait — no! Wait, no, that $70.1K was after the October 29 payroll. Let me recheck my records. Oh right — October 1 payroll was $74K gross with $22K in taxes that I forgot to mention to him earlier, so his actual starting accumulated balance going into October 15 was already $22K. So $22K (Oct 1) + $23K (Oct 15) + $19.5K (Oct 22) + $27.6K (Oct 29) = $92.1K after Oct 29. Then the $1.8K bonus taxes on Oct 30 pushed him to $93.9K? No wait — let me tell it correctly from the actual worksheet we reconstructed. The correct numbers were: Oct 3 payroll taxes $26K, Oct 10 $24K, Oct 17 $25K, Oct 24 $22.7K — so after Oct 24 that's $97.7K. Then October 30 he added the $6K bonus with $1.8K in taxes = $99.5K + $1.8K = $101.3K. Over $100K. He found that out November 2 when we met for the quarterly review. Total deposit was due OCT 31 (next banking day after Oct 30 was Oct 31 Friday). That's 2 days late by the time he deposited on November 2 → 2% penalty on $101.3K = $2,026. But it also flipped him to Semi-Weekly for the rest of 2024 and all of 2025. Then he messed up the first semi-weekly deposit in November another 3 days late because he didn't understand the Wednesday/Friday schedule = another 2% penalty on $48K = $960. Total for a $1.8K extra tax on a $6K bonus = ~$3,000 in penalties. That's why we set automated EFTPS recurring scheduled deposits for him after that, with two authorized signers required to change any deposit schedule. $3,000 gone over a $6K bonus. Don't be that guy."