Juneteenth & other federal holidays: Impact on Finance

Your company may or may not have celebrated Juneteenth this year. But now that it’s a federal holiday, it’ll likely affect your company’s payroll and accounting processes going forward.

President Biden signed legislation on June 17, 2021, making Juneteenth (June 19), a legal public holiday to commemorate the end of slavery in the U.S. Here’s what that means to you and your Finance team.

Planning ahead for the federal holiday

As a federal holiday, Juneteenth could impact your payroll cycle, payment due dates and certain filing deadlines since banks, nonessential government offices and post offices are typically closed.

Federal holidays that fall on weekends are especially tricky. If the holiday occurs on a Saturday, it’s observed the Friday before. If it falls on a Sunday, it’ll be observed the Monday afterward. You saw that with the Fourth of July this year. It fell on a Sunday, so the federal holiday was observed on Monday, July 5.

Heads up: June 19 is a Sunday in 2022, meaning Juneteenth will be observed on the following Monday.

Several states also recognize Juneteenth as a paid state holiday. More may follow in the coming months. That means you’ll have to check that the holiday doesn’t affect state tax payment or reporting deadlines next year.

Additional holidays

Looking forward, there are several holidays at year-end that the feds will observe on different days. Reason: The actual federal holiday falls on a weekend.

Christmas Day and New Year’s Day are both on Saturday this winter. So they’ll be observed on Friday, Dec. 24, 2021, and Friday, Dec. 31, 2021, respectively.

Plus, now that Dec. 31, 2021, is a holiday, the IRS has postponed many tax deadlines that fall on that day. Payments and forms originally due on Dec. 31, 2021, will be considered timely if they’re received by Monday, Jan. 3, 2022. Some states may be following suit.

The remaining legal holidays for the year occur on their expected dates. But you should still be aware of how each federal holiday may affect the timelines for you and your Finance team.

Here are the rest of the holidays for 2021, straight from IRS Publication 509:

• Monday, Sept. 6 – Labor Day
• Monday, Oct. 11 – Columbus Day
• Thursday, Nov. 11 – Veterans’ Day
• Thursday, Nov. 25 – Thanksgiving