Stimulus Checks, Paid Leave and IRS Notices, Oh MY

So, the stimulus, you know, we had a stimulus “round one”. That was back around April of 2020 and now we've got “round two”. But ironically deceased taxpayers still qualified, if they were deceased in 2020, they still qualify to receive the stimulus so if out there if you have any unfortunately loved ones that passed and you have the stimulus and you're thinking for sure it's wrong, an error, no it is not.

Yeah. And so, what happened was with the 2019, with the first round, it was based off of 2019 and there were people who passed in 2019 who got checks and you had to send those back. Yeah, but they're saying if you passed in 2020 you’re still eligible.  
Paid sick leave, yeah okay so there was a tax credit that came out with the Cares Act, that in 2020 if someone came up with COVID had a family member who had COVID had to take care of them and had to go home to work, and couldn't work, right, you had to still pay them for 10 days. Right. And you get a tax credit. Basically, could be up to $511 a day to offset that for having to pay them. Now, that credit got extended into 2021 and it's scheduled to expire, March 31, possibly with the new bill maybe go through the end of the year, but the mandate to pay them is no longer in place.  So, if you choose to do that you get the credit but you don't have to pay them, if they're out for 10 days, whereas you did in 2020. Right. So it's good that that it is still out there and it kind of encourages employers to still pay.  Thing is, think about it this way, you know, you pay your employees, you're getting the money back.

Well, another - something else that's interesting. So we've had a few, a few clients, not many but I know there's a lot of IRS notices going out there called CP 59s and this is saying basically “Hey, you didn't file your 2019 tax returns”. Well, the IRS has admitted that those were issued in error, potentially. I mean obviously some people who got them really didn't file, but you may have received a notice, and if you did for sure file, go ahead and disregard. Now, what would be real easy check as you e-filed, okay, no brainer… I filed I'm going to disregard, but if you paper sent in your return, and you didn't send it in certified, you may want to err on the side of caution and go ahead and send it in certified again, because as you and I know the IRS has not processed, quite a few, like, isn't it in the millions? Great question. And so as of Monday, the IRS hasn't processed 7,000,000 2019 tax returns.  And get this, I found out today…this is funny. The IRS had a trailer that they were just putting these tax returns in 30 million tax returns, unopened, were in a trailer, and they've said as of today they've been opened.  I have to laugh or I think I’ll cry.  So, these are paper returns.  So, if they haven't even opened them, how much money is sitting in that trailer?  It was ensured, that you would not get charged any penalties and you would be the date that it was postmark on the check.  That’s sort of funny -  you said the word “ensured” I thought you we're gonna tell me they insured the trailer. They probably should have.  There’s a lot of checks in there.  Isn’t that crazy?

So, speaking of tax season is going to get extended again, so we’ll see. Hold on one sec so we'll see.  The AICPA and House Ways and Means have sent letters to the IRS asking for an extension until July 15, 2021. The IRS has not commented. And it's interesting and that certainly raises a lot of questions and definitely some conversations in our office.
We've talked about PPP quite a bit. Right. So, starting on Wednesday, this past Wednesday, only employers with 20 or less employees will be able to apply for the PPP. They’re just basically given them a 14 day window, so that only those of the small employers can apply and then after the 14 days it'll open back up, but again remember no more. This ends on March 31. Right. So if you didn't get your PPP in, get it in soon. Yeah, because then two weeks is going to go by and then you're only you're going to have about a little less than a month window to apply. Right.  So it's good for those that are under 20 and keep in mind that the PPP rules didn't change, it's just if you have 20 or fewer emplyees.  Correct, correct.
Great. That's good.

So that's what we got going on. Right, you know, that's just a snippet, but you know there's a lot to think about this tax season a lot that you need to be educated on so you know, reach out to us and we'll educate you.