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On March 18, the Internal Revenue Service provided clarification to special payment relief for individuals and businesses in response to the COVID-19 Outbreak.

For individual returns, income tax payment deadlines with a due date of April 15, 2020, are automatically extended until July 15, 2020, for up to $1 million of their 2019 tax due.

This payment relief applies to all individual returns, including self-employed individuals, and all entities other than C-Corporations, such as trusts or estates. The IRS will automatically provide this relief to taxpayers. Taxpayers do not need to file any additional forms or call the IRS to qualify for this relief.

The State of Ohio is taking action to help small business affected by the coronavirus pandemic.

On March 17, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine and Lt. Gov. Jon Husted sent a letter and application to the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) to qualify the State of Ohio for the Economic Injury Disaster Loan program.

This federal program will enable small businesses and non-profits throughout the state impacted by the outbreak of COVID-19 to apply for low-interest loans for up to $2 million in assistance, which can provide vital economic support to help overcome the temporary loss of revenue they are experiencing.

Tax Deadline Remains April 15

While taxpayers still have to file their taxes by April 15, 2020, the deadline to pay taxes has been extended by 90 days until July 15, 2020.

During a March 17th press conference regarding the coronavirus pandemic, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin announced taxpayers will have an additional 90-days through July 15, 2020 to pay their taxes, penalty-free and interest-free. 

He said individual taxpayers can defer up to $1 million of tax payments and corporations up to $10 million in tax payments.

Zinner & Co. partner Sue Krantz, CPA, CGMA, recently completed her term on the Board of the Cleveland Rape Crisis Center.

For the past nine years, Krantz was honored to serve, most recently as Treasurer and a member of the Executive Committee. 

“While my term has come to a close, I was proud and in awe of the significant accomplishments, which took place at CRCC while I was a member of the Board,” she said. “CRCC expanded its offices and staffing in order to improve access to its free services, which are now offered in four counties, in many regional satellite offices and at partner agency locations.”

Zinner & Co. is proud to introduce our new 2020 tax season interns. We hope this snapshot of them will help you get to know them, as some of our clients will be receiving communications from our interns, as they will work on tax returns this season. 

The Internal Revenue Service launched an online resource called Identity Theft Central to help taxpayers report identity theft and teach them how to protect themselves against it.

This new resource provides information to alert taxpayers to the signs of identity theft, actions to take if they become a victim and advice on how to protect personal identity and data.

Located within the IRS website, Identity Theft Central offers specific information for taxpayers, tax professionals and businesses.

One of the most common tax-related misconceptions is that filing a tax extension increases your risk of a tax audit. 

This longstanding myth is simply not true, as filing a tax extension can statistically decrease the risk of an audit.

In addition to statistically decreasing the risk of an audit, there is also one other benefit to extending a tax return.

Many individuals may think the time to plan for tax season occurs during the tax season, which occurs after their tax year has ended.

Unfortunately, this is often too late to make any adjustments, which may have benefited the taxpayer.  

Similarly, businesses can also fall into this line of thinking and fail to plan for tax season during their tax year.

Due to many changes in the tax law under numerous tax acts that have been implemented over the past decade, including delay in the issuance of tax forms needed to complete individual income tax returns, the compression of the tax preparation and filing season has become even more severe. 

The tax code is long and complicated and oftentimes, taxpayers do not know what deductions or credits are available, which means they cannot take advantage of possible savings.

With so many changes under the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and the 2019 SECURE Act now in place, changes have been made regarding the deductibility of expenses that both business and individual taxpayers may not be aware of.