On May 28, 2021, President Biden’s administration unveiled its proposed budget for fiscal year 2022. The administration’s budget recommendations are, of course, only recommendations. Congress can accept, reject or modify them as part of the legislative process, as well as add other proposals. It can also choose to offset all or only a part of any spending programs it approves. As a result, we want you to be aware of the following tax proposals from the President’s budget. More information will be released as we gain clarity on these items.

If you received unemployment benefits in 2020 due to the pandemic and paid taxes on those funds, you may qualify for a refund from the IRS. The agency began sending out refund checks earlier in May and will continue through the summer months.

Unemployment Compensation Fraud is a very serious matter. The Pennsylvania Department of Labor & Industry (L&I) is committed to preventing, identifying, and blocking scams and is continuing its aggressive efforts to do so, including:

• Cross-matching data with other state agencies and across the country to detect fraud activity.
• Working with the U.S. Department of Labor to prevent and detect fraudulent activities related to UC.

Did you receive an IRS identity verification letter? There is no need to panic; this is not a scam.

If you received a 5071C, 4883C, 5747C, 6331C, or 5447C letter, the IRS needs to verify your identity.

A note to our clients regarding improvements made by the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) to the child and dependent care tax credit for the 2021 tax year, i.e., the credit available for expenses a taxpayer pays for the care of qualifying individual(s) under the age of 13 so that the taxpayer can be gainfully employed.

Earlier this month, the IRS issued notices to approximately 260,000 taxpayers stating they haven’t filed their 2019 federal tax return. These notices, referred to as CP59 notices, are issued yearly to identify taxpayers who have failed to file a tax return that was due the prior calendar year (Tax Year 2019).

IRS will issue new withholding tables (Publication 15) to reflect changes as of January 1, 2021. When available, the new withholding tables can be obtained at the Internal Revenue website, www.irs.gov.

In addition to saving income taxes for the current and future years, effective tax planning can reduce eventual estate taxes, maximize the amount of funds you will have available for retirement, reduce the cost of financing your children’s education, and assist you in managing your cash flow to help you meet your financial objectives.

The City of Philadelphia recently announced a COVID related relief option which includes the ability for Philadelphia based businesses to amend their 2019 BIRT if they overestimated their 2020 estimate and the ability for restaurants to amend their November & December U&O returns to exclude the dining area from the calculation. If you are a Philly business impacted by the recently enhanced restrictions, reach out to your accountants ASAP to determine how these announcements impact you.

Since the enactment of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), an individual’s federal tax deduction for state and local taxes (SALT) paid during the calendar year is limited to $10,000. The SALT limitation impacted many individual partners and shareholders. Several states responded to this limitation by issuing workarounds to enact entity-level taxes for pass-through entities where the entity pays the tax instead of its owners and then deducts the full amount of state taxes paid, thus avoiding the $10,000 limitation at the individual level. It was uncertain whether the IRS would accept this entity-level tax workaround.