THERE IS NO FEDERAL INCOME TAX FILING DEADLINE TODAY, APRIL 15, 2020

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Apr 152020
 

As part of the COVID-19 pandemic relief, the April 15, 2020 individual income tax deadline (and the deadline for calendar year C corporations) has been postponed until July 15. No extensions of time to file are necessary. No payments are due today.

If you are a client of ours and have not received an update as to the status of your 2019 return preparation, DO NOT WORRY. All work which has been received to date is in queue and will be processed.

Filing deadlines vary by state. For more information, please see our previous post on this topic:

2020 Coronavirus (COVID-19) Economic Impact: Information for all taxpayers

What exactly is an Economic Impact Payment (EIP) Return?

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Apr 132020
 

Taxpayers who were not required and in fact, did not file a 2018 or 2019 Federal Income Tax return (under the filing threshold, etc.) and who did/do not receive Social Security Benefits must file a “simple” return in order to qualify for the Economic Impact Payment due to the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. These “simple” returns are officially titled EIP returns.

All that is required is name, address, SSN, and date of birth of the taxpayer (and spouse, if filing jointly) and name and SSN of any dependents under the age of 17 (as well as relationship and number of months in home – students away from home and infants born on or before 12/31 are considered “in-home” for the entire year). Finally, banking information for direct deposit is needed. The return itself reports $1 of interest income (itself below the filing and taxation threshold, but sufficient to register as “income” for this purpose).

If you were not required to file and did not for 2018 or 2019, but do receive Social Security benefits, there is no need to file this “simple” return to ensure qualification for the Economic Impact Payment.

Hint: Kids living at home, 17 years of age or older, who may not have filed returns due to their income being below the threshold, but who were not claimed as dependents in 2018 or 2019 (or will not be claimed in 2019, in cases where the parent’s/parents’  return has not yet been filed) will need to file one of these returns in order to receive an EIP. Note that the EIP is not available to dependents of other taxpayers. See the IRS’ Econominc Impact Payment Information Center for qualification info.

Rosenthal & Rosenthal can prepare these returns.

Canceling scheduled direct debits of Federal Income Tax

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Apr 132020
 

If you’ve already filed a return and scheduled a direct debit of your Federal Income Tax balance due, the subsequent postponement of the 2019 filing deadline will not automatically push the scheduled payment date.

For direct debit payments, call 888-353-4537 to revoke the debit. Then, pay by check on or before July 15, 2020.

Individual states will vary in their handling of these matters. We’ll update this post with state information as we find it.