The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act made changes to the tax law, including increasing the standard deduction, removing personal exemptions, increasing the child tax credit, limiting or discontinuing certain deductions and changing the tax rates and brackets. As such, a new version of Form W-4, Employee’s Withholding Allowance Certificate, was released on February 28. Taxpayers with […]
In most cases, taxpayers who turned 70 1/2 during 2017 must start receiving required minimum distributions (RMDs) from Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs) and workplace retirement plans by Sunday, April 1, 2018. The April 1 deadline applies to owners of traditional (including SEP and SIMPLE) IRAs but not Roth IRAs. Normally, it also applies to participants […]
Taxpayers should be aware of a new twist on an old scam involving erroneous tax refunds that are being deposited into their bank accounts. After stealing client data and filing fraudulent tax returns, these criminals use the taxpayers’ real bank accounts to deposit refunds, then use various tactics to reclaim the refund from the taxpayers. […]
February 12 Employees – who work for tips. If you received $20 or more in tips during January, report them to your employer. You can use Form 4070. Employers – Social Security, Medicare, and withheld income tax. File Form 941 for the fourth quarter of 2017. This due date applies only if you deposited the tax for […]
Starting in February 2018, individuals with “seriously delinquent tax debts” will be subject to a new set of provisions courtesy of the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act, signed into law in December 2015. The FAST Act requires the IRS to notify the State Department of taxpayers the IRS has certified as owing a seriously […]
The Form W-2 scam has emerged as one of the most dangerous phishing emails in the tax community. During the last two tax seasons, cybercriminals tricked payroll personnel or people with access to payroll information into disclosing sensitive information for entire workforces. Last year, more than 200 employers were victimized, resulting in hundreds of thousands […]
Updated income-tax withholding tables have been released for 2018 reflecting changes made by the tax reform legislation enacted last month. The updated withholding information, available on IRS.gov, shows the new rates for employers to use during 2018. Employers should begin using the 2018 withholding tables as soon as possible, but not later than February 15, […]
More than 155 million individual tax returns are expected to be filed in 2018, according to the IRS, which began accepting electronic and paper tax returns on Monday, January 29, 2018. The January 29 opening date was set to ensure the security and readiness of key tax processing systems in advance of the opening and […]
Recent tax reform legislation affected many provisions in the tax code. Many were modified, either permanently or temporarily, while some were repealed entirely. Here are five that survived. 1. Mortgage Interest Deduction While the House bill repealed the mortgage interest deduction, the final version of the act retained it, albeit with modifications. First is that […]
During January All employers – Give your employees their copies of Form W-2 for 2017 by January 31, 2018. If an employee agreed to receive Form W-2 electronically, post it on a website accessible to the employee and notify the employee of the posting by January 31. All Businesses – Give annual information statements to recipients of […]