Applies to: Basic Payroll customers who are deposit on a semiweekly schedule and Full Service Payroll customers who have not completed their payroll tax filing setup who deposit on a semi-weekly schedule.
If you are a Full Service Payroll customer who has completed the tax filing setup, Patriot handles your Schedule B filing for you if you are a semi-weekly depositor. See "Viewing Your Company Tax Filing Packet" for more information. |
Patriot does not pre-fill or supply Schedule B. If you're a semiweekly schedule depositor under Basic Payroll, you must complete Schedule B yourself using your payroll tax liability data, and attach it to your Form 941. See "Basic Payroll Customers: Completing Form 941" for instructions on the rest of your return.
Definitions:
Schedule B (Form 941): The IRS form titled "Report of Tax Liability for Semiweekly Schedule Depositors." It lists your federal tax liability for each individual day you paid wages during the quarter. It is filed as an attachment to Form 941, not on its own.
Semiweekly schedule depositor: An employer required to deposit federal payroll taxes twice a week rather than once a month, based on the total taxes reported during the lookback period, or based on crossing the $100,000 next-day deposit threshold.
Lookback period: The 12-month window the IRS uses to determine your deposit schedule for the calendar year — specifically, July 1 of the second preceding calendar year through June 30 of the preceding calendar year. For example, the lookback period for 2026 is July 1, 2024 through June 30, 2025.
Tax liability (for Schedule B purposes): The federal income tax you withheld from employees' pay, plus both the employer and employee shares of Social Security and Medicare tax, for a specific pay date. This is different from a deposit — Schedule B never shows deposits, only liability.
Do I Need to Fill Out Schedule B?
You need to complete Schedule B if you're a semiweekly schedule depositor for any part of the quarter.
Your lookback period determines your default schedule. Your deposit schedule for the calendar year is based on the total taxes you reported on Line 12 of Form 941 across all four quarters in your lookback period. If that total is $50,000 or less, you're a monthly schedule depositor for the entire year and don't need Schedule B. If it's more than $50,000, you're a semiweekly schedule depositor for the entire year and do need Schedule B.
The $100,000 next-day deposit threshold can also trigger it mid-quarter. Accumulating a $100,000 tax liability on any single day triggers two separate things: you must deposit that amount by the next business day, and you also become a semiweekly schedule depositor for the rest of the current calendar year and all of the following calendar year, even if your lookback period made you a monthly depositor. Because Schedule B is required for any quarter in which you were a semiweekly depositor for any part of it, you must complete Schedule B for the entire quarter in that case, not just the days on or after you crossed the threshold.
New employers: if you didn't exist for the full lookback period, any quarter you didn't exist is treated as zero tax liability. Most new employers start out as monthly schedule depositors unless the $100,000 next-day rule applies during the year.
If your payroll tax liabilities during the lookback period were under $50,000 and you never had a large payroll with federal liabilities exceeding 100,000 triggering a next day deposit, you are most likely a monthly depositor and do not need to fill out a schedule B to show when your liabilities occurred during the quarter
How to Complete Schedule B
You'll need to download the form Schedule B from the IRS. (Patriot does not supply the Schedule B in the software.)
If you have the full version of Adobe you may be able to fill out the Schedule B by typing into each box. Otherwise, print the Schedule B and fill it out by hand.
Enter your EIN and business name at the top of Schedule B, exactly as they appear on Form 941.
Enter the calendar year and check the box for the correct quarter. These must match the quarter and year checked on your Form 941.
Run Reports > Payroll Reports > Payroll Details with the first date of the quarter and the last date of the quarter, keep all sources, employees and locations checked. Group by pay date.
Schedule B is divided into 3 months, each with numbered spaces for the days of the month.
For each pay date, calculate the total tax liability: federal income tax withheld, plus the employer and employee shares of Social Security and Medicare tax for that payroll.
In each month's section, find the numbered space matching the date you paid wages, and enter your tax liability for that date. Use the pay date — not the date the liability accrued or the date you made the deposit.
If two payrolls were paid on the same date (for example, a regular payroll and a bonus run paid the same day), combine them into a single entry for that date.
Add each month's entries to get a monthly total, then add the three monthly totals together to get your Total liability for the quarter. This total must equal Line 12 of Form 941.
Worked Example
Say you pay employees every other Friday and accumulate a $2,000 tax liability on each of 6 pay dates during the quarter: April 4, April 18, May 2, May 16, May 30, and June 13.
Month 1 (April): enter $2,000 on line 4 and line 18
Month 2 (May): enter $2,000 on lines 2, 16, and 30
Month 3 (June): enter $2,000 on line 13
Adding these gives a total liability for the quarter of $12,000 (6 pay dates × $2,000), which must match Line 12 on your Form 941.
Don't Report Deposits on Schedule B
Schedule B is a liability record, not a deposit record. Never enter deposit amounts on Schedule B — the IRS gets your deposit information from your electronic federal tax deposits, separately from this form. Your actual deposits go only on Line 13 of Form 941.
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