BHT&D Certified Public Accountants Blog

Sources cited by the Washington Post indicate that if the IRS does not have direct deposit information on record for you, paper stimulus checks will be mailed out starting on April 24th. The IRS plans to issue checks at a rate of about 5 million checks per week, which could take up to 20 weeks to complete. They will be sent out in reverse 'adjusted gross income' order, starting with people with the lowest income first:

Tags: Economic Impact Payment, IRS Direct Deposit, IRS Paper Check, Stimulus Payment

The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act) was signed into law on Friday, March 27^th, 2020 and went into effect on April 1^st, 2020. This blog post focuses in on the expansion of unemployment benefits for individuals including the self-employed and individuals with limited work history.

Tags: COVID-19, Michigan Unemployment, CARES ACT, Federal Unemployment, Self Employed

A summary of major provisions of the 2020 Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act affecting small businesses and self-employed taxpayers:

Tags: Small Business, CARES ACT, Pay Check Protection, Self Employed

A summary of major provisions of the 2020 Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act affecting individual taxpayers:

Tags: COVID-19, CARES ACT, Federal Unemployment

The Internal Revenue Service has extended the federal tax return filing date from April 15, 2020 to July 15, 2020. 

They have also issued an update on their plan to implement the new paid leave provisions of the Families First Legislation.

The following are other tax related deadlines as of this posting:

Tags: Business Tax, Individual Tax, COVID-19, Paid Sick Leave, Family First Legislation, Tax Filing Deadline

To answer questions about paid sick leave and unemployment, we are providing a chart about recent federal and Michigan state updates.

The comprehensive chart answers questions about:

Tags: Michigan, COVID-19, Paid Sick Leave, Michigan Unemployment

Effective January 1, 2020, the Department of Labor updated the thresholds for workers to be considered exempt from overtime. 

Changes were also made to Form W-4, the Michigan minimum wage and the business mileage rate.  Following is a summary of some of the changes employers should be aware of.

Tags: Michigan Minimum Wage, Compensation, Overtime, Michigan Employer, Overtime Exemption

Congress has passed a large number of tax changes, including retirement plan issues, that are effective in 2020, as well as extensions through 2020 of a number of tax provisions that had expired or were about to end.  While Congress passed these changes Dec. 19, 2019, many are not aware of the implications.

The list of changes is quite large, so we have only included those that are most likely to affect individual tax returns. Here is a run-down on some of the new tax provisions:

Tags: Retirement Plan, IRA, Individual Tax, Tax extenders

A taxpayer’s filing status for the year is based upon his or her marital status at the close of the tax year. Thus, if you get married on the last day of the tax year, you are treated as married for the entire year. The options for married couples are to file jointly or separately. Both statuses can result in surprises – some pleasant and some unpleasant – for individuals who previously filed as unmarried.

Tags: Individual Tax Return, Tax Planning

If you are inclined to procrastinate until the end of the year or, even worse, until tax-filing season to worry about your taxes, you may be missing out on opportunities to reduce your tax and avoid certain penalties.

The following are some events that can affect your tax return; you may need to take steps to mitigate their impact and avoid unpleasant surprises after it is too late to address them.

Tags: Tax Planning, Small Business Accounting, Tax Liability