Category: Tax and Financial News

This has been a year of economic and tax uncertainty with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, potential stimulus bills and the presidential election. As a result, tax planning may be more important than usual this year. To help guide you, we will cover six year-end tax planning strategies – three for individuals and three … Continue reading “Our Top 6 Year-End Tax Planning Tips”

The Senate Republicans’ slimmed-down stimulus bill recently failed to materialize after receiving less than the 60 votes needed to move forward. The “skinny” stimulus bill, with a price tag of only $650 billion, was intended to be a way to quickly inject stimulus into the economy and bypass both the multi-trillion-dollar Republican HEALS Act and the … Continue reading “What’s Next for a Stimulus Bill?”

No surprise, but Americans are consuming and spending less since the coronavirus kicked in.  Retail sales dropped to 8.7 percent in March, the largest month-over-month decline since the Census Bureau started tracking this data. Previously, the sharpest decline was less than half this – at 3.9 percent from October 2008 to November 2008, during the … Continue reading “3 State Level Tax Hikes That Might Be Coming Due to COVID-19”

As the economic impact of COVID-19 lingers and an impending second wave is on everyone’s mind, Congress is already thinking of new legislation to stimulate the economy. One of the ideas on the top of the list is an expansion of the Research and Development (R&D) tax credit as part of the next COVID-19 relief … Continue reading “R&D Tax Credits May be Part of the Next Tax Relief Bill”

As the economic impact of COVID-19 lingers and an impending second wave is on everyone’s mind, Congress is already thinking of new legislation to stimulate the economy. One of the ideas on the top of the list is an expansion of the Research and Development (R&D) tax credit as part of the next COVID-19 relief … Continue reading “R&D Tax Credits May be Part of the Next Tax Relief Bill”

The HEROES Act, otherwise known as the Health and Economic Recovery Omnibus Emergency Solutions Act, can greatly improve the benefits for the earned income tax credit (EITC) for eligible workers who don’t have children. This legislation would also help wage earners in the business-to-consumer and leisure sectors of the economy impacted severely by the coronavirus … Continue reading “HEROES ACT Can Combat Economic Downtown”

The CARES Act stimulus package substantially relaxed the rules around certain retirement account loan and distribution requirements, but with much confusion. As a result, the IRS recently put out a FAQ document to address the COVID-19 rule relaxation around IRA and 401(k) loans and distributions. This important information should come as welcome news for the … Continue reading “IRS Questions and Answers on COVID-19 IRA and 401(k) Loans & Distributions”

One of the most important provisions of the CARES Act for small businesses is called the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). The PPP is a $349 billion program designed to assist small businesses (fewer than 500 employees) facing financial difficulties as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic through specifically structured loans. The loan program offers funding … Continue reading “Be Right About Free Money: Potential Legal Risks of the Paycheck Protection Loan Program”

During the holiday season in December, Congress passed the Consolidated Budget Appropriations Act of 2020. Included in this Act was a tax package that renewed more than 24 tax provisions through what are known as extenders. An extender makes a tax provision effective retroactively. Some of the extender provisions are rather esoteric, so we’ll only … Continue reading “Should You File an Amended 2018 Return?”

How it All Started Back in July of 2019, France passed what was dubbed a “digital tax” targeting the largest tech companies. Impacting approximately 30 big companies such as Amazon, Google, Facebook and Apple, the tax applies to revenues earned from digital services of companies that earn more than $830 million in total and at … Continue reading “Taxes and Tariffs: The U.S. Response to France’s Digital Tax”