Monthly Archives: January 2021

New law extends COVID tax credit for employers who keep workers on payroll

The Internal Revenue Service urges employers to take advantage of the newly-extended employee retention credit, designed to make it easier for businesses that, despite challenges posed by COVID-19, choose to keep their employees on the payroll.

The Taxpayer Certainty and Disaster Tax Relief Act of 2020, enacted Dec. 27, 2020, made a number of changes to the employee retention tax credits previously made available under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act), including modifying and extending the Employee Retention Credit (ERC), for six months through June 30, 2021. Several of the changes apply only to 2021, while others apply to both 2020 and 2021.

Continue reading →

All taxpayers are now eligible for identity protection PINs

The IRS has expanded the Identity Protection PIN Opt-In Program to all taxpayers who can verify their identity.

The Identity Protection PIN is a six-digit code known only to the taxpayer and to the IRS. It helps prevent identity thieves from filing fraudulent tax returns using a taxpayers’ personally identifiable information.

Continue reading →

IRS pushes start of 2021 tax season as online filing opens to Feb 12

The Internal Revenue Service announced that the nation’s tax season will start on Friday, February 12, 2021, when the tax agency will begin accepting and processing 2020 tax year returns.

Because of the pandemic and stimulus payments, the Internal Revenue Service will not start accepting federal tax returns until February 12, 2021.

The February 12 start date for individual tax return filers allows the IRS time to do additional programming and testing of IRS systems following the December 27 tax law changes that provided a second round of Economic Impact Payments and other benefits.

This programming work is critical to ensuring IRS systems run smoothly. If filing season were opened without the correct programming in place, then there could be a delay in issuing refunds to taxpayers. These changes ensure that eligible people will receive any remaining stimulus money as a Recovery Rebate Credit when they file their 2020 tax return.

Continue reading →

Truck stops and Tarmacs

“Don’t reinvent the wheel, just realign it.”  Anthony J. D’Angelo, author

We’ve all heard the adage about reinventing the wheel.  Why spend a great deal of time and effort on working through something that someone has already explored?  When Women In Trucking Association was formed, we looked at other trade and professional organizations and determined what parts worked for us and what didn’t.

In fact, we took a lot of ideas from an organization called Women In Aviation International (WAI).  At the time, I was working on my private pilot’s license and joined the WAI because I wanted to meet other women who fly.  The airline industry isn’t all that different from the trucking industry, and both have a very small percentage of women behind in the cab or the cockpit.   Many of our challenges are similar, so why not cooperate on our efforts?

Continue reading →