You may be eligible for up to 39 weeks of unemployment benefits if you are self-employed and your business income has been affected by COVID-19.
Recent legislation now provides small business owners the opportunity to collect unemployment which is not something they are normally able to do. As the majority of our clients are in Maryland we are going to cover how this is working in Maryland. If you live in a different state, please check with your state’s unemployment office.
The filing deadline for tax year 2019 is now July 15th for Federal and most state taxes. Quarter 1 and Quarter 2 estimated tax payments deadlines have also shifted to July 15th. Exceptions to the new deadline are Hawaii, Idaho, Mississippi, and Virginia. See this post for more details.
The COVID-19 pandemic has upended all aspects of life around the world, including the world of business here in the U.S.
If your business is struggling, you may be able to get some help from the federal Small Business Administration (SBA), which is authorized to provide loans to small businesses on an as-needed basis.
On March 21, the Treasury Department and the IRS announced that the federal income filing due date is automatically extended from April 15 to July 15, 2020. Taxpayers can also defer federal tax payments that were originally due on April 15 to the new deadline of July 15, meaning if you owed money to the IRS for your 2019 tax return then you’ll have a few extra months to make that payment to them without penalties and interest regardless of the amount owed. This also means that since the deadline has been pushed back to the middle of summer the need to file extensions for clients this season will primarily be for clients that we have not received their documents by July 1st or we need additional time to process all the returns that we have received. Clients wishing to make contributions to IRAs for 2019 also now can extend this date to July as well.
Believe us when we say a global pandemic was definitely not on our radar if you asked us how we’d like to end the 2019 tax season. That being said, it’s unfortunately the world we live in right at the moment. And while we know over time the spread of this virus will hopefully be contained, we must act accordingly in this moment.
As of Wednesday, March 18, we are officially cancelling all in-office appointments for all clients until the end of the tax season. We are encouraging clients to either mail their tax documents to our office or to upload them to our client portal in lieu of coming in for their appointment. Our staff will be continuing to complete returns before the filing deadline in April unless federal or state government issues a mandate for us to close. In the event your return can not be completed before the deadline, we will file an extension for you. We will notify you at that time whether any money will need to be sent with your extension to protect you from other penalties and interest.