Is it a bad thing that my employer is refusing to participate in the payroll tax deferral?
So first, what is this payroll tax deferral? As part of the CARES act for economic relief during COVID-19, employers can choose to not withhold employee contributions to Social Security (6.2%) or Medicare (1.45%) for some employees, for a while. Is it a bad thing if my employer is refusing…
COVID-19 triggered mid-year benefits changes
One of the common questions I’ve been hearing lately is “I planned for XXX expensive, semi-elective surgery this year. Due to COVID-19 that surgery can no longer be done in 2020.” Or “I planned for XXX expensive, semi-elective surgery this year. Due to COVID-19 I can’t have that surgery right…
Should I do a Roth conversion now?
Roth conversions were the question on the table during a discussion I had recently. With the markets down, someone who had been contributing to a traditional IRA wanted to know if they should do Roth conversions during the current financial mess accompanying the COVID-19 pandemic. Roth conversions are all about…
Where is my stimulus check?
For those who desperately need their CARES Act stimulus check [1, 2], waiting for it is painful. And not even knowing if the IRS has all the information it needs for sending that money to you is even more of a black box. The IRS has set up a website…
Unemployment Insurance during COVID-19
Involuntary furloughs are coming. As we start talking today about one of our country’s social protection systems, unemployment insurance, let me lead with 3 very important points. First, unemployment insurance varies GREATLY by state, there is no national standard. Second, if you don’t qualify for unemployment by your state’s standards,…
Additional tax implication COVID19 thoughts
Yesterday we talked about the CARES Act, focusing on the Economic Relief Rebate. Today we’re going to briefly cover two other financial implications of COVID19. First, a great graphic illustrating the rebate amounts vs AGI is hosted by the Tax Foundation. Second, separate from the CARES Act, the IRS has…
CARES act, or Economic Relief Funds part 2
Earlier this week we were talking about the possibilities of checks coming to Americans in this time of world-wide hardship. The US Congress passed, and the President signed, the CARES act into law today. We’ve talked previously about how major tax reform only comes around every ~20 years, and how…
Value of additional income
With it being tax season, my kiddos were watching me spread out all of our family tax paperwork across the kitchen table, and of course wanted to know more. I didn’t think they were going to get much value from a line-by-line review of our tax return however 😛 Instead,…
“Something” changed in Minnesota tax law
It’s tax season! And that means I’m getting some interesting tax questions to share with you all 🙂 Here’s one I got that wasn’t really framed as a question, but it definitely deserved to be addressed. Someone said “Something changed in my Minnesota taxes, we got a whole bunch more…
Merry Christmas is SECURE’d
December 27th, 2017 was the date the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) was signed in to law. Typically major tax reform is only an every ~30 years affair (with the prior set being in the 1980’s), with some non-trivial bumps every ~10 years. This week, only 2 years later,…