COVID-19 INFO HUB

For additional information on the FFCRA, please visit:

dol.gov/agencies/whd/pandemic/ffcra-questions

dol.gov/newsroom/releases/whd/whd20200326

For additional information on the PPP or EIDL loans, please visit:
sba.gov/page/coronavirus-covid-19-small-business-guidance-loan-resources

For additional information on unemployment benefits, please visit:

Federal:
dol.gov/coronavirus

State: edd.ca.gov/about_edd/coronavirus-2019.htm

For IRS updates, please visit:
irs.gov/coronavirus

For FTB updates, please visit:
ftb.ca.gov/about-ftb/newsroom/covid-19/index.html

For CA Department of Tax & Fee Administration (CDTFA, formerly BOE), please visit:
cdtfa.ca.gov/services/covid19.htm#Relief

Please contact your Tax Advisor for more detailed information.

WE ARE HERE TO HELP

All of our lives have been impacted by COVID-19. During this time, HLG is working to keep our clients and community informed. In addition to talking with us directly, we hope the information below provides a helpful resource.

If you need to drop off documents please do so at our Oakland office.

March 21, 2021 [Email Notice]:

2020 Individual Income Tax Deadline Pushed Back to May 17, 2021

As you have likely heard, yesterday the IRS announced that they have pushed back the individual income tax filing deadline from April 15, 2021 to May 15, 2021. Because May 15, 2021 is a Saturday, the actual filing deadline is Monday, May 17, 2021. Today, the Franchise Tax Board announced that they will conform to the IRS’s deadline.

What does this mean?

The May 17, 2021 deadline is the deadline by which you need to file and pay your 2020 individual income taxes for Federal and State (CA) purposes. This is also the deadline to fund IRAs and HSAs for the 2020 tax year.

This deadline does NOT apply to Q1 2021 estimated taxes. If you remit quarterly estimated tax payments, your Q1 2021 payment deadline is April 15, 2021.

The extension also does NOT apply to fiduciary tax returns. If you are required to file certain fiduciary (trust, estate) tax returns, the deadline to file remains April 15, 2021.

 C-Corporations with calendar year-ends also did NOT receive an extension of time to file. C-Corporations with tax years ending 12/31/2020 are still required to file and pay taxes on or before April 15, 2021.

The May 17, 2021 extended deadline is therefore very different than the July 15, 2020 extension we received last year. As you may recall from your engagement letter with us, we had a document submission deadline of March 15, 2021. That was the deadline by which we needed to receive your tax documents in order to file by the initial tax filing deadline. We are maintaining our internal deadlines. If you submitted your tax documents on March 15, 2021 or earlier, we will file your tax return on or before May 17, 2021. If you did not meet our March 15 deadline, we will work with you on extension calculations and will file your extension on or before May 17, 2021.

As always, if you are experiencing a hardship and need to file your tax return as soon as possible, please let us know and we will work with you to expedite your filing.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact your tax advisor.

January 25, 2021 [Email Notice]:

Tax season during a pandemic

 Dear HLG Client,

 Happy New Year! As we welcome in the new year and hope for a better year than 2020, we also know that we must plan for a healthy and safe Spring tax filing season. We are therefore writing to let you know what you can expect come tax time.

In—person Meetings: At this time, our physical offices remain closed and we are not conducting in-person meetings. All tax season meetings will be held virtually using Zoom or Teams.

Document submission process: We encourage you to submit your tax documents by uploading them to your client portal. Our preferred format is PDF files. Please do not send JPEGs as these are often difficult to read. If you do not have a scanner and need to mail in or drop off your documents, that is an option as well. We will be checking our office mail and drop off box daily. All documents to be mailed or dropped off should be addressed to our Oakland office only. The Oakland address is: 5940 College Avenue, Suite F, Oakland, CA 94618. Effective January 1, 2021, we closed our Pleasanton office and moved our Pleasanton team to remote work stations.

Please do not send us tax documents via email. Email is not a secure method of transmitting sensitive data and we therefore discourage it.

2020 Tax Organizer: Your 2020 tax organizer will be uploaded to your portal this month. As a reminder, please note that you do not need to input data from your tax documents to your tax organizer. Use the organizer as a checklist to be sure you are providing us with all of the tax documents we will need to prepare your return. The questionnaire portion of the organizer is, however, mandatory. We will not work on a return unless we have a completed questionnaire. The questionnaire helps us to identify, for example, additional filing requirements you may have, credits you may be eligible to claim, additional deductions to report, etc.

Tax filing process: Our tax filing process will remain the same. We will file all eligible tax returns electronically and will collect your signature via DocuSign.

We have recently added a series of “how to” videos to the FAQs section of our website. If you have questions on how to upload documents to your client portal, for example, please visit our website and review the instructional videos.

We thank you all for your continued business and look forward to serving you in 2021 and beyond.

April 11, 2020 [Deadlines]

April 1, 2020 [Webinar]:

Miles Armstead, Wealth Management Private Banker
Fremont Bank | miles.armstead@fremontbank.com

Jill Wilk, Vice President of HR Services
Payentry | jwilk@payentry.com

Darcy Decoite, Human Resources Consultant
One Resource Consulting | darcy@oneresourseconsulting.com

Nathan Diaz, Henry Levy Group
Tax Director | nathan@hlgcpa.com

March 31, 2020 [Email Notice]:

Over the past few days we have been focused on processing the FFCRA (Families First Coronavirus Response Act) and the CARES Act so that we can provide you with information that may be relevant to your business or to you individually. The following is a general re-cap of these acts.

March 31, 2020 [Info Poster]:

The Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA) requires certain employers to provide their employees with paid sick leave and expanded family and medical leave for specified reasons related to COVID-19. These provisions will apply from April 1, 2020 through December 31, 2020. This enclosed poster is available for download for employers.

March 31, 2020 [Email Notice]:

The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act allocated $350 billion to help small businesses keep workers employed amid the pandemic and economic downturn. Known as the Paycheck Protection Program, the initiative provides 100% federally guaranteed loans to small businesses. Info on this program is enclosed.

March 16, 2020 [Email Notice]:

Notice to our clients that our offices are closed and we will assist you remotely during shelter-in-place directives.