I wrote about the coronavirus a couple weeks ago, and boy, that feels like three years and 30,000 miles away from today. Since then we have arrived in an unprecedented place. That makes it impossible to come in here and pretend to have some grand advice, the best things to do to get through this are going to be so wildly different for everyone based on their individual situation anyway. My only wish now is that everyone finds some peace while doing what they need to keep themselves, their families, and their community safe and healthy.

There is no one whose life has not been affected by this situation. Local, state, and federal authorities all came out with requests, rules, and edicts and it is easy to feel overwhelmed by it. Alright, so maybe in there comes one piece of advice I can give, which is to tune out for a time when the news feels like too much. If you are caring that much about it, then you are already someone giving enough thought to your actions that you are largely doing the right things. Allowing yourself a mental break so you can refuel a little bit is just another of those right things.

As more and more things got pushed back over the last week, it took a little time, but the Treasury even eventually caught up to the trend. On Tuesday, Secretary Steven Mnuchin announced that individual taxpayers who owe up to a million dollars can defer tax payments until July 15, as well as corporations for up to $10 million. They are, however, still encouraging filing taxes by April 15^. Things are still changing by the day, though, so of course there remains the possibility of that deadline changing.

But if nothing else changes and you need to get documents to us and your tax return filed, this can be done electronically and accomplished without any face-to-face contact. We will do our best to make the process as painless as possible, for there are more important places in which to place your thoughts. For those expecting a refund, after all, the importance of getting that money may have increased over the past week

I will stop there for now in the interest of not adding to that overwhelming amount of things we have to think about, while remaining optimistic that we are not far from the time when I will be able to put a more normal message in this space.

Without fail, every tax season we talk to someone who has a tax bill that they cannot pay. Without fail, outside of tax season we talk to someone who didn’t file their taxes because of a tax bill they cannot pay.

When hearing of someone with a large tax bill they cannot pay, many people’s first reaction is, “Didn’t they know they had to pay taxes?” Quite often it is the case that these people were aware they had to pay but didn’t have the means to do so. Some then just push it to the side and hope it never catches up to them. Others intend to pay, never quite get the funds to settle the bill, then decide to not file taxes the next year because of it, and things continue to snowball.

There are a couple things to keep in mind in this situation. One is that the chances you get away without paying are very small. If you received a W2 or a 1099 that says you earned money during the last year, the IRS also received a copy of it. If you owe them money because of it, the agency knows that, too. A second thing to remember is that if you then don’t file taxes, it doesn’t mean it’s going to take longer to catch up to you. The agency will then also know you didn’t file and slap you with extra fees for not filing on top of those for not paying.

No matter what you think about the justice of the tax system, it is not wrong for the IRS to want the money that it is owed. It’s therefore not surprising that the agency recently put out a release that speaks to all the ways you can pay your tax bill. This isn’t bad information to have overall, but issues with nonpayment rarely involve simply not knowing how to get your money to the government.

Lower in that release, though, is some information on what you can do if you have a tax bill you cannot pay. Maybe it shouldn’t be too surprising that the IRS gives less space to these topics than what you can do to simply pay your debt in full but be aware that these things do exist.

Sure, there will be some fees and interest involved when you don’t pay a bill on time. There are ways to get a plan in place immediately, though – and thus minimize that extra money that you have to pay – and there is a lot to be said for the peace of mind that comes with that.

The more you owe, the tougher it can be to gain that peace of mind. Again, however, the sooner you start to move forward on making a plan to do it, the sooner the worries go away. What tactics are the best to use will depend on your situation, so I can’t give a roadmap here for how it would happen. If you want to know how things could be handled for that tax bill you didn’t think you could pay, though, please don’t hesitate to contact us and make an appointment.

I'm sure that I’m not the only person who feels the world has been moving quickly. Between tracking pandemic number, having some presidential hopefuls drop out of the race, having other presidential hopefuls seemingly rise from the grave, and then just trying to still carry out the typical day-to-day activities, it feels like a lot is going on and that it Is impossible to keep up with that much ongoing change.

Of course, it’s impossible for me to not include tax season in the current go-go-go. And when it comes to thinking about change, well, take a look at this recent article that speaks about how many are expecting change to come in the tax arena, too, following election season.

This seems like a valid prediction to me. One of the big cornerstones of what Donald Trump has accomplished as president is the passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which brought in some rather sweeping changes. If a Democrat wins the presidency come November, it seems reasonable to expect an effort to at least roll back some of those changes. If Trump wins reelection, it also seems reasonable that he will take it as a mandate to push his vision of the tax system even further.

For now, though, it doesn’t matter.

Even with pushing for it as a huge piece of Trump’s agenda, the TCJA was not passed until the end of 2017.  That means all of tax year 2017 still fell under the old rules that existed when Trump was elected. The tax system is a complicated process and changing it takes time.

Also, it is probably impossible to guess just what changes would be implemented. Sure, each candidate has some idealized version of what they would like the system to be. They do not get to simply declare it from on high, however.  With the TCJA, there was some sense of who would benefit from the plan, but there were still many surprises when it came to the “how.”

I think the best strategy is to keep operating your finances under the rules that you know exist. They are still the rules now, after all, and working under them is what will lead you to your greatest benefit. If in the future there are changes, then alter your plan and work under the new rules.

And sure, personally we also all have our idealized versions of what the tax system should look like. And if it is something that is very important to you, then it should enter the calculus of how you decide who receives your vote during an election season. And when numbers finally come in, we will all cheer or complain according to how things turned out as it regards that vision. But still, the rules will be the rules – until they are no longer the rules.

And those rules are the rules now as we move through filing taxes for the 2019 season. I mean, can you believe it’s already March? So, if you haven’t started doing your return under those current rules yet, be aware that our calendar is filling up ever faster, so act quickly if you want a better chance at getting an ideal appointment time.