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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.

Topics: tax services, Taxes - Corporate & Business, Taxes - Planning, Rules and Returns, Taxes - Individual, tax, taxes, income tax, Zinner & Co., Coronavirus, Treasury Department, COVID-19, Deferring Tax Payments

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.

Topics: tax services, Taxes - Corporate & Business, Taxes - Planning, Rules and Returns, Taxes - Individual, tax, taxes, IRS, Coronavirus, Treasury Department, Steven Mnuchin, COVID-19, Deferring Tax Payments

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.

Topics: tax services, Taxes - Corporate & Business, Taxes - Planning, Rules and Returns, Taxes - Individual, tax, taxes, income tax

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.

Topics: tax services, Taxes - Corporate & Business, Taxes - Planning, Rules and Returns, Taxes - Individual, tax, taxes, income tax, tax avoidance

It’s the 4^th quarter. The holidays are right around the corner. The last thing you may want to think about is income taxes … but there are some compelling reasons why you should be thinking ahead.

Last year’s tax season saw the biggest change to the tax code in over 30 years. At the end of the tax season, we noted that one of the lessons learned was that individuals who engage us in tax planning early, on average, fared much better than those who did not. There are some very important reasons for this:

Topics: tax services, Taxes - Corporate & Business, Taxes - Individual, income tax, tax avoidance

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.

Topics: tax services, taxes, income tax, IRS, Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017

Topics: tax services, income tax, IRS

Should I Take the Educational Tax Breaks or My Child?

Topics: education, tax services, deductions, income tax

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.

Topics: tax services, deductions, income tax, IRS

Many higher income taxpayers have long made it a practice to open investment accounts for their children, hoping to take advantage of their lower tax rates.  Many years ago, Congress imposed, what is colloquially known as the “kiddie tax” to place strict limits on the amount of investment income that can be taxed at those lower rates. 

One of the changes made by the recently enacted Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 made some significant changes to how the “kiddie tax” is administered, impacting the way adults pass investment income on to their minor children. 

The "kiddie tax" is a provision that taxes the unearned income of children under the age of 19 and of full-time students younger than 24 at a special rate. Under both the new law and the old, the first $1,050 of a child's income is tax-free and the next $1,050 is taxed at a rate of 10 percent.

Topics: tax services, Taxes - Planning, Rules and Returns, Taxes - Individual, Retirement Planning & IRAs, withdrawls, tuition, tax avoidance, Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017