As you may have heard, the tax filing deadline for individual taxes has been moved to July 15th (instead of April 15th).  As I mentioned last week, the tax payment deadline to send payments was previously moved to July 15th without incurring penalties & interest.

Our drive thru has been working well, so feel free to use that.  Due to the situation, we have decided that there will be no more office in-person meetings until further notice.  This is to protect you, our clients, and our team.  We are glad to talk to you by phone or do a virtual meeting to discuss your taxes or help you in any way we can.

 

While the filing deadline definitely takes some pressure off, we are still left with some uncertainties that you may want to think about for your situation.

 

Unknowns/ Uncertainties about Filing

  1. As of this writing, the state of Georgia has not said they are extending the deadline.  If we do hear that, we will let you know.

  2. We do not know the status of things like IRAs and HSA payments that you normally would have to pay by April 15th to get the deduction.

  3. Due to the uncertainty of potential local shelter-in-place orders, we are encouraging you to get the information to us as soon as possible.  We are attempting to make it as easy as possible to work with us remotely, such as uploading documents to us and e-signatures.  If this should happen, we also want you to know that we are able to work remotely and you will still be able to call, email or otherwise communicate with us as needed.

Reasons You May Want To or Need to File As Soon As Possible

  1. If you have a refund due – the IRS is not delaying refunds and actually trying to expedite them since they are trying to help the economy.

  2. If you are a business owner and seeking the disaster recovery loans out there that the SBA is trying to put there to assist, then they probably will want your tax returns.

  3. If you owe money, you do not have to wait until July 15, 2020 to file to get payment relief  on penalties & interest.  If you owe, even if you don’t have the current capacity to pay it, we encourage you to file so that you can plan for that payment to ensure there are no penalties & interest imposed.

Other Items of Interest

  1. The estimated taxes for the first quarter of 2020 have also been extended to July 15th, 2020 without interest or penalty.  What has not been said is what will happen with second quarter estimated taxes, as normally these are due by June 15th, 2020.

  2. There is much talk about the SBA ‘s expedited emergency/ disaster loan programs for businesses.  We will be putting more information out about this to our business owners in a separate communication.

  3. As of this writing, a finalized deal for stimulus payments has still not been passed.  We have been following this closely and when it is finalized, we will send you the details.  One point from last week’s communication is that the bills floating around in Congress did seem to have some payment for dependents.  There are also income limits being discussed, but until they are finalized, I am not going to discuss this further until there is something more definitive to report.

  4. As with the stimulus payments, there has been no movement on the discussion of the payroll tax holiday as of this writing.

A Final Note

We all know these uncertain times can be scary, especially when our financial security is involved.  We want to let you know our office is here to support you, even if you just want someone to listen.  Please feel free to reach out if you have any questions or want to discuss any of these subjects with any of our team.

 

Thank you.

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