Returning Value Blog

On April 28, 2021, the Biden administration unveiled a $1.8 trillion plan to provide assistance to middle- and low-income families that would be largely funded by tax increases on wealthy Americans. The plan is expected to be fleshed out during President Biden’s first address to a joint session of Congress. 

The legislation signed in March allows taxpayers who earned less than $150,000 in modified adjusted gross income to exclude unemployment compensation up to $20,400 if married filing jointly and $10,200 for all other eligible taxpayers. The legislation excludes only 2020 unemployment benefits from taxes.

The American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (ARPA), signed into law by President Biden on March 11, 2021, provides additional major relief to individuals and businesses that continue to be impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. The ARPA includes the following provisions related to individual taxpayers:​

According to research, millions of Americans receive a surprise medical bill each year, most often as a result of emergency room visits where out-of-network providers perform services at an in-network facility. While the average surprise bill is roughly $600, bills can reach into the tens of thousands. In fact, a COVID-19 patient received a surprise air ambulance bill that was over $52,000.

The IRS recently released the 2021 inflation-adjusted amounts for Health Savings Accounts (HSAs). 

If you’re self-employed and work out of an office in your home, you may be entitled to home office deductions. However, you must satisfy strict rules. 

Tax season is here and so are the fraudsters. Tax ID fraudsters are using stolen Social Security numbers to file phony tax returns and steal tax refunds.

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) brought with it many tax changes for 2018. Those changes left many taxpayers unaware of the caps on state and local tax deductions, the elimination of reimbursed job expenses and the suspension of dependency exemptions, just to name a few. To add to the mix, after Congress passed the law, new withholding tables were not available to employers until mid-January and some did not see the switch in withholding until mid-February. Based on all of these changes, taxpayers are finding themselves below the 90% threshold and therefore would have to pay a penalty. 

Advantages of 529 education savings plans.

 Donate appreciated art by year end.