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In the middle of this year, Congress passed a sweeping tax package the Trump administration has labeled the “One Big Beautiful Bill.” Buried inside that legislation were changes that effectively shut the door on the Employee Retention Credit and rewrote the rules for many claims that were already in the pipeline.
For many Denver and Colorado employers, that matters for a specific reason: Over the last several years, payroll companies, CPAs and specialist firms filed ERC refund claims for millions of small and midsize businesses. Those claims were filed between 2021 and early 2025, often with the expectation that substantial checks from the U.S. Treasury would follow. In some cases, they have. But in many other cases, they have not.
Chris Gitre, founder and CEO of The Relief Consultants, believes there is still a great deal at stake. “We think roughly $125 billion in ERC refunds are still stuck in the system,” he says.
The ERC itself is now closed. The final deadline to file passed on April 15. After that date, no additional ERC claims can be made; only previously filed claims — many of them now stalled — remain.
After a few years of heavy ERC activity, the IRS began to realize many firms were filing claims erroneously. That meant overstating the amount their clients qualified for or filing claims for businesses that did not qualify at all. In response, the IRS paused processing for nearly a year. When processing restarted, the agency began issuing denials much more broadly — sometimes even to companies that did, in fact, qualify.
Gitre puts the current situation in simple terms. He says, “Against this backdrop, there is a simple, practical reality: If a firm filed an ERC claim for your business and you have not been paid or you believe the amount you received is incomplete, there is a problem somewhere in the system, and it will not fix itself.”
He says that when TRC steps into these stalled cases, they tend to see the same patterns repeat. “What we see now, as the program effectively winds down, is that many employers are left with ERC claims that appear to have gone nowhere. The claim was filed months or years ago. The business has been told to ‘wait.’ Meanwhile, nothing happens.”
In that situation, Gitre explains, several things may have occurred. In some cases, the claim was never fully processed because of a coding or account error. In others, the claim was partially allowed or fully denied, but the basis for that denial was never clearly substantiated and still needs to be addressed. In still other cases, a formal disallowance notice was mailed — sometimes only to the firm that prepared the claim — and never forwarded to the business owner, leaving the business in the dark while the chance to respond to the denial quietly ticks away.
The good news, Gitre says, is that when the claim disallowance is based on missing information or a correctable misunderstanding, TRC can often resolve the issue. A targeted explanation, a proper response to an IRS notice or a timely appeal can be enough to get the claim paid.
For some businesses, TRC’s value has been in getting the claim right from the start. Dan Vizzard, owner of Revival, a restaurant and bar in Uptown, turned to TRC to evaluate whether his restaurants qualified and, if so, to handle the entire ERC process. TRC prepared and filed his ERC claim, documented eligibility and stayed on top of the IRS process until the refunds were issued.
“TRC guided us through the ERC from day one,” Vizzard says. “They handled the analysis, the filing and the back-and-forth with the IRS. In the end, we received $50,000 in credits we would not have claimed on our own. For us, it wasn’t about fixing a problem — it was about having someone we trusted do it right the first time.”
Despite results like that, TRC continuously finds that many ERC firms without deep tax controversy experience often choose not to respond at all once problems arise. Having filed large volumes of marginal claims, they are usually reluctant to engage directly with the IRS. For the business owner, that can mean something far worse than a simple delay: The firm that prepared the claim stops returning calls, does not handle the IRS notices and yet still expects to be paid for “getting” the credit.
Gitre is blunt about those situations. It is understandably unsettling for an owner to realize a firm prepared their ERC claim; did not do the work necessary to actually get it paid, effectively disappeared when the IRS pushed back; and still wants its fee. “Those circumstances are unacceptable,” he says.
TRC is often brought in at that stage to take over the claim, address the IRS directly, and help the business owner navigate those prior arrangements so they are not left paying twice for work that was never completed.
This combination of closed filing windows, intensified enforcement and strict limitation periods is why unresolved ERC claims will be lost unless they are addressed now. The money is either brought out of the system through active work, or it is lost.
For those still waiting on their ERC funds, Gitre emphasizes that TRC’s interests are aligned with the business owner’s. “Our firm works on a performance basis. We do not charge an upfront fee to review and take over an ERC file. Our compensation is tied to results: our clients pay our invoice only from funds they actually receive from the IRS, under terms set out in the engagement agreement and consistent with applicable law and professional standards. Business owners have already spent years waiting, and what they need now is a path to clarity and resolution, not another fixed cost.”
To learn more, visit TheReliefConsultants.com/Denver.