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On Friday, March 22, 2019, the Treasury and IRS announced they have lowered the withholding underpayment penalty threshold to 80%. This means that taxpayers who were 80% or less under-withheld on their income tax withholding or quarterly tax payments may qualify for relief.

Every year, a group of adventurous souls decides: This is the year I’m going to prepare my own tax return! While we certainly applaud an individual’s right to establish self-reliance and try to save money on preparation fees, it’s rarely a good idea.

You check your mail and you see the return address, IRS. Your first thought? Well, that can’t be good. You open up the letter and you read that you’re being audited. Look on the bright side – less than 1% of returns get audited each year, you’re just one of the lucky ones! All jocularity aside, there’s nothing to panic about.

The IRS recently issued a warning to taxpayers who are seriously delinquent on their tax debt - you may be unable to attain a new passport or renew your existing one.

First, a joke about catch up…

“Three tomatoes are walking down the street…papa tomato, mama tomato and baby tomato. Baby tomato starts lagging behind and papa tomato gets really angry, goes back and squishes him and yells… CATCH UP!!!!”

That joke isn’t going to get a lot of laughs at the IRS (alright, I admit it won’t get laughs anywhere else either) as they try to get caught up after the longest government shutdown in U.S. history. The shutdown, which lasted 35 days and affected the majority of the IRS’s workforce, has had a profound impact on an agency that had already been running very lean.

Effective January 1, 2018, new rules took effect for partnership taxpayers. These "Partnership Audit Rules" affect how taxes (as well as penalties and interest) are assessed when a partnership has been audited by IRS.

The IRS announced this week in IRS Notice 2019-11 that it would not penalize taxpayers whose tax withholding and estimated tax payments fell short last year due to failing to change their withholding under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA).

Previously, we shared how the Whitehouse stated there would be no disruption to tax filing or the issuance of refunds.

On Tuesday, the IRS shared some details of its revamped contingency plan for operations during the government shutdown.

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, you’ve probably heard about the battle between the President and Congress over funding for a southern border wall. The government “shutdown” created by the impasse has created a lot of uncertainty about many government-provided services.