Tax relief

The Internal Revenue Service has changed the calculation for determining the $10,200 exclusion on unemployment benefits in the new pandemic relief package, allowing more taxpayers to qualify, but forcing tax software developers to update their programs.

A group of House Democrats is sounding the alarm about delays in Economic Impact Payments going out to beneficiaries of safety net programs.

The National Conference of CPA Practitioners is asking the IRS to postpone the tax deadline from May 17 until June 15 and to make it apply to quarterly estimated payments.

The IRS will automatically process refunds for individuals who paid taxes on their unemployment benefits before Congress passed a law making those payments tax-free, Commissioner Chuck Rettig said.

Senate Democrats are sponsoring legislation to safeguard stimulus payments from debt collectors, while Republicans want states to be able to use funds from the new relief package for tax cuts.

The Internal Revenue Service has decided to use its discretion to avoid reducing the size of Economic Impact Payments with tax debts owed to the federal government.

The Internal Revenue Service is pushing back the tax-filing deadline until May 17 after heavy pressure from Congress and tax and accounting groups.

The Treasury Department and Internal Revenue Service have distributed more than half of the $410 billion in stimulus payments to individuals that Congress approved earlier this month.

For those with less than $150,000 in adjusted gross income who collected unemployment benefits this past year, the COVID relief bill allows them to receive up to $10,200 of those benefits tax-free.

The Internal Revenue Service posted information about how to correctly compute the new exclusion on a portion of unemployment income as Congress pushes the IRS for further tax-filing relief.