By: Randall P. Andreozzi Congress last night passed COVID-relief legislation that included a much-anticipated provision that allows businesses to deduct qualifying expenses paid with forgiven Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans. IRS caused a stir earlier this year when it issued IRS Notice 2020-32 which told taxpayers that such otherwise-deductible expenses lose their character if they’re paid with forgiven PPP loans. The
By: Gary P. Bluestein The financial consequences of COVID-19 have been particularly difficult for a large number of American small businesses and with lockdowns accelerating in many states, many of those businesses will be forced to consider a bankruptcy filing. Ironically, legislation enacted by Congress just prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, may have created a much-needed lifeline for many of
By: Derek Wheeler Today, July 15th, the IRS’ People First Initiative will come to an end. Implemented at the end of March as COVID-19 began spreading throughout the United States and large parts of the country began to shutdown, the People First Initiative relieved taxpayers of many impending tax burdens. Filing deadlines were extended, installment payment agreements were suspended, and
By: Heather L. Marello and Kevin M. Murphy During a recent web conference, IRS Large Business and International Division Commissioner Douglas O’Donnell warned that IRS is gearing up to initiate hundreds of non-filer audits against high income individuals and those with related flow-through entities. The original announcement of this initiative came in July, 2019, when LB&I added high income non-filers
By: Ruth R. Wiseman, Esq. and Melissa A. Brennan On March 27, 2020, the President signed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (“CARES”) Act. The act has created numerous initiatives to help individuals and businesses navigate financial problems resulting from the Covid-19 Pandemic. The details related to many of those programs have been highlighted in numerous blogs and
The IRS has issued a warning to taxpayers to be cautious about phishing scams pertaining to IRS payments during the COVID-19 pandemic. These scams can lead to serious tax-related fraud and identity theft. Taxpayers should be mindful of this if they receive any phone calls, emails, text messages, social media or website requests for money or personal information. Taxpayers are
There have been a significant number of recent IRS updates that impact taxpayers from both a controversy and compliance perspective. While our focus is to always provide the absolute best tax controversy updates and counsel for our clients, the IRS is currently modifying many current compliance procedures in the wake of the pandemic that are important to pass on to
Last week, the Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced that the filing deadline for certain returns has been extended from April 15, 2020 to July 15, 2020 (Notice 2020-18) and they also provided some payment relief in response to the COVID-19 national emergency. Although this is an ever-evolving and fluid situation, for the time being the Treasury
Treasury Secretary announced today that the IRS’ tax filing deadline has been extended to July 15th. This will be welcome news to not only taxpayers but the tax practitioners who were under the gun to get tax returns filed by April 15th in this tumultuous and uncertain environment resulting from the coronavirus outbreak. With this new change, both the tax
As the COVID-19 spreads, taxpayers of all walks of life are affected by the vast actions taken to contain its spread and protect public health. In the face of this public health crisis, we want to ensure that all those that are being affected by this are educated on their rights and responsibilities in regard to their personal and business