STIMULUS AND CLIENT SERVICE UPDATES

We have learned that after Wednesday, May 13, 2020, the Internal Revenue Service will no longer accept direct deposit information on their website for filers who have not previously supplied banking information for direct deposit. This means that IF you haven’t provided them with this information by tomorrow, you will be receiving your stimulus check (providing that you qualify) via paper check and it could take as long as September to receive it. If you are so inclined and have not done so yet, please go to WWW.IRS.GOV and click on “Get Coronavirus Tax Relief” and follow the steps, you will need your 2018 or 2019 income tax return handy to provide some identifying information before you can input your banking data. We recognize that this website portal has been difficult at times to operate and has not always functioned properly. If you are one of those that have tried and had no luck, perhaps you want to give it one more attempt before it is too late.

We are currently still wrapping up tax returns that were received by our March 15^th submission deadline. We expect to have most all of these completed before the end of May and anticipate most being completed by our secondary deadline of May 21, 2020. We will be in touch as soon as we have your returns completed, so we can deliver to you as promptly as possible. Just a reminder, the extended due date for these returns is July 15, 2020.

For those packages that came in after the March 15, 2020 submission deadline, these will be prepared on a first come, first served basis. If you have any pressing needs for your fling to be done sooner (home refinance for example), we welcome you to let us know your circumstances so that we may determine if we can move this up in the queue for you and let you know as promptly as possible. We want to be able accommodate any reasonable requests you may have. We also anticipate that these returns will be completed prior to the extended due date of July 15, 2020.

The business income tax return deadline for filing under extension is September 15, 2020. The individual income tax deadline under extension is October 15, 2020. There is currently no relief for extending these due dates and as such we will proceed as usual for our second season with our submission deadline for  for timely filing.  Therefore, the extension submission deadlines remain the same as they were communicated within your original engagement package.

Businesses and their respective individual owner filings must remit their information no later than Friday, July 24, 2020 to guarantee an on time filing by September 15, 2020.

Individuals without business filings are requested to submit their information no later than Friday, September 4, 2020 to guarantee an on time filing by October 15, 2020.

If you would like a replacement engagement package sent to you, please email Lys@phocuscompanies.com to request a package to be e-mailed to you.

While we have gotten used to conducting so many meetings via ZOOM and over the phone, many of you have asked when we plan to resume meetings here at the office. We recognize that the face to face interaction is a must have for so many of our clients and we have held off until we have worked through all possible considerations to do so. We are currently working on a plan to reopen our offices in June to visitors and this will include new sanitizing and other related protocols to ensure the health and safety of our staff and guests alike. We will be sending out an update on this in the near future as soon as the plan has been finalized.

As always, thank you for partnering with us to be your trusted advisors, especially during these truly unprecedented times.