03/11/2021
It's been a while since we've had to post one of these Covid updates, but on Wednesday Congress passed new legislation that has the potential to massively disrupt the current tax filing season. The American Rescue Plan Act has now been sent to the President to sign and, which he is expected to do either today or tomorrow. This bill contains quite a few tax law changes, almost all of which won't take affect until 2021, but there is one change that will be retroactive to 2020.
If you received unemployment benefits in 2020, and you made less than $150,000, the first $10,200 of your unemployment benefits will be tax free. It is unprecedented for Congress to make retroactive tax law changes this late into the tax filing season. Once this becomes law it will mandate several changes that could potentially delay your ability to file your tax return, even if you didn't receive unemployment. At a minimum the IRS is going to have to reprogram their computers for the change. It is quite possible that the IRS will have to redesign the Form 1040 to be able to show the total unemployment benefits received and then to show the taxable portion. Both of these will take time. If it ends up just being a matter of reprogramming computers that may only disrupt electronic filing by a few days, but if the IRS has to redesign the form that could delay filing for several weeks. Once the IRS provides guidance on how to handle this, out tax software provider will have to incorporate the change.
So what does all of this mean to you? While there is still a lot we don't know yet, it is almost a certainty that the IRS will have to suspend the acceptance of e-filed returns while they update their computers for the change. Whether this will be for a day, a week, or a month we don't know yet. It is possible that this will result in the IRS giving a blanket extension of time to file tax returns, similar to what happened last year. If that happens, we'll be back with another update.
For our clients that did not receive unemployment benefits, we will continue to work toward completing your returns. If you have not yet forwarded your 2020 tax data to us, please do so as soon as possible; don't wait, because it is not a given that the due date will be automatically extended. Hopefully, any delay in filing will be short, and we can finalize your returns and file them as we normally would.
If you received unemployment benefits and we have not yet electronically filed your return, we will complete your return but will have to hold it until we have a software patch to account for this law change. We are not yet sure how the IRS will handle the situation of taxpayers that have already filed and claimed unemployment benefits as income that will now be tax-free. It is possible that the IRS will calculate a refund based on the new law, but the more likely response will be that you will need to file an amended tax return. If it is determined that you need to file an amended return, you should first wait for the IRS to process your original return. This is not the same as the time it takes the IRS to issue your refund. It usually takes 6 to 8 weeks for the IRS to process an electronically filed return, which means that the soonest you will be able to file an amended return would be late April.
As we work toward finalizing your returns, please be patient and understand that we may be dealing with delays that are not of our making. We will try to get back in touch as we learn more.
