Ahola, Mack & Associates, Ltd.

07/09/2024

Congratulations to Pat K, the winner of our free personal tax prep! A huge thank you to all of our clients that donated to the Valley Outeach food drive this year!

04/26/2023

Congratulations to Barry G, the winner of our free personal tax prep! A huge thank you to all of our clients that donated to the Valley Outeach food drive this year!

02/06/2021

Be alert for fraudulent Forms 1099-G

Scammers filed fraudulent claims for unemployment compensation using stolen personal information.
You may get an incorrect Form 1099-G from the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development for unemployment benefits you did not receive.
What should I do if I get an incorrect 1099-G?
You should:
• Contact Minnesota Unemployment to report possible unemployment insurance fraud
• Request a revised 1099-G showing you did not receive unemployment benefits
• Keep the revised 1099-G for your records
If you cannot get a corrected 1099-G before filing your tax return, you should only report the income you received.

08/20/2020

Don't forget to keep those school supply receipts! Do your purchases qualify?

The Minnesota Department of Revenue has two tax relief programs for families with children in kindergarten through 12th grade: the K-12 Education Subtraction and the K-12 Education Credit.

08/20/2020

IRS backlog resulting in erroneous penalty notices

Word is spreading about the IRS and its significant backlog processing mailed-in tax payments. You or your clients may have received a late-payment notice despite having mailed a check in on time. These notices were computer generated and went out to taxpayers based on whether their payment was processed.

The IRS sent the following information Aug. 14 about pending check payments:

If your client mailed a check with or without a tax return, it may still be unopened in the backlog of mail the IRS is processing due to COVID-19. Any payments will be posted as the date IRS received them rather than the date the agency processed them. To avoid penalties and interest, taxpayers should not cancel their checks and should ensure funds continue to be available so the IRS can process them. To provide fair and equitable treatment, the IRS is providing relief from bad check penalties for dishonored checks the agency received between March 1 and July 15 due to delays in IRS processing. However, interest and penalties may still apply.

This week, the House Ways and Means Committee chair urged the IRS to cease all penalty notices until the backlog is cleared. You can read more about this on Chairman Richard Neal’s website.

If you or your clients received a computer-generated notice that may have resulted from the backlog, the IRS has asked affected taxpayers to wait to contact the agency. For those in public practice, you may want to alert your clients in advance and remind them to share any IRS notices with you.

04/20/2020

More deadlines have been extended by the Feds: IR 2020-66, 4/9/2020; Notice 2020-23, 2020-18 IRB
In a Notice, the IRS has extended more tax deadlines. These extensions include a variety of tax form filings and payment obligations that are due between April 1, 2020 and July 15, 2020, including estimated tax payments due June 15 and the deadline to claim refunds from 2016. The Notice also suspends associated interest, additions to tax, and penalties for late filing or late payment until July 15, 2020.

03/24/2020

The Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) is creating an emergency loan program to help Minnesota small business owners who need immediate assistance to meet their families’ basic needs during COVID-19 closures.

03/24/2020

Treasury, IRS, and DOL announce plans to implement the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (Pub. L. 116-127).

03/24/2020

If you missed the Governor of Minnesota’s recent announcements, we want to provide you with the information.

Here is the link for employers that explains it pretty thoroughly: https://uimn.org/employers/employer-account/news-updates/covid-19.jsp and here is link for employees: https://uimn.org/applicants/needtoknow/news-updates/covid-19.jsp

I noted there is no waiting week for unemployed employees and business owner (if opted in to Minnesota UI).

Here are some of the details:
On March 16, 2020, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz issued an executive order to ensure workers affected by the COVID-19 pandemic have full access to unemployment benefits. The executive order makes applicants eligible for unemployment benefits if:
• A healthcare professional or health authority recommended or ordered them to avoid contact with others.
• They have been ordered not to come to their workplace due to an outbreak of a communicable disease.
• They have received notification from a school district, daycare, or other childcare provider that either classes are canceled or the applicant’s ordinary childcare is unavailable, provided that the applicant made reasonable effort to obtain other childcare and requested time off or other accommodation from the employer and no reasonable accommodation was available.
Governor Walz’s executive order waives the nonpayable or “waiting” week to ensure applicants have access to unemployment benefits as quickly as possible.
While all applicants for unemployment benefits must actively seek suitable employment, Governor Walz’s executive order stipulates that you may look for suitable work that does not pose a risk to your health or the health of others. If you have only been laid off temporarily, you can meet work search requirements by staying in contact with your current employer.
Finally, Governor Walz’s executive order waives the ordinary five-week benefit limitation for business owners who have become unemployed as a result of COVID-19.
If your employment has been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, we encourage you to apply for unemployment benefits online.
Please contact Minnesota Unemployment for Businesses at 651-296-6141 (press 4 to speak to representative) if you have additional questions as we navigate through this time.

COVID-19

03/24/2020

Gov. Tim Walz on Monday afternoon signed new executive orders to further protect individuals and businesses from the ramifications of COVID-19. Read on for details about one of those executive orders, as well as new information about the state tax filing deadline.

State individual tax filing deadline is now July 15, 2020 — but there’s an exception

The Minnesota Department of Revenue (DOR) announced Minnesota’s individual tax filing deadline is extended until July 15, 2020. While this announcement is in line with the IRS, there are notable differences with regards to estimated tax payments and other tax types for the 2020 tax year.

According to the DOR’s announcement, Minnesota is allowing additional time for making 2019 state individual income tax filings and payments to July 15, 2020, without any penalty and interest being applied.

At this time, this grace period does not include estimated tax payments for individual income taxes due April 15, 2020, for the 2020 tax year. If you recall, IRS Notice 20-18 says their extension applies to “Federal estimated income tax payments (including payments of tax on self-employment income) due on April 15, 2020, for an Affected Taxpayer’s 2020 taxable year.”

Emergency loans will be available for certain businesses

Executive Order 20-15 authorizes the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) to establish a Small Business Emergency Loan program. These loans are meant to help close the gap for business owners who may be waiting a few weeks before their SBA emergency loan is received.

The emergency loan program is available to businesses that were required to close per Walz’s executive orders last week. The loans will be 50% forgivable and offered at a 0% interest rate. DEED Commissioner Steve Grove encouraged businesses to continue applying for SBA loans, but to use the state’s emergency loans as another tool to stay afloat.

In addition, cities and counties with revolving loan funds are allowed to choose to issue those funds as loans to retail and service providers.

More information about DEED’s emergency loan program is in their news release. Expect to see more on how to apply for an emergency loan later this week.

03/17/2020

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Tuesday that taxpayers can delay paying their income taxes on as much as $1 million in taxes owed for up to 90 days.

This is for Federal Taxes only, as of now, any state tax payments that are due, will still be due by April 15th.

https://www.irs.gov/coronavirus

Taxpayers are about to get a three-month reprieve to pay income taxes owed, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said at a press conference on Tuesday.

03/09/2020

We are just a little over a quarter of the way to our goal of $1600/pounds! If you haven't donated already, and are able to, please consider bringing in a cash or food donation and also get your name in the drawing for the free personal tax prep!

Thank you Ahola, Mack & Associates, Ltd. for your generous donation to our Top 20 in 2020 March challenge! Your donations today totaled 208 pounds of food and $225. We are grateful for your generosity!