Keep Calm and Carry On [UPDATED]

Hi gang, Tom O’Saben coming to you remotely now that we are unable to go into the office at the University of Illinois Tax School in Champaign. We’re all trying to keep our social distance. And also let’s call it sheltering in place.So to keep up our weekly blogs, we notice a lot of postings out there on Facebook (and I know you all have anxiety) as to what’s going on in the tax world. So I’m going to try to give you the straight answers as we know them today. Now realize and I’ll throw this caveat out there, that what I have to say could change tomorrow. But here’s the situation as it stands right now. There is no extension in time to file your personal tax returns… your clients personal tax returns. April 15 is the deadline. There has been no advancement of that due date as we speak. Now, it doesn’t mean that you can’t file an extension. You can and that gets you to October 15. But there’s a lot of misinformation out there. The one I really want to point out and I was really aggravated about this was from a good reputable source, the New York Post. Their blog on Facebook said yesterday, IRS extends filing season. No, that’s absolutely positively wrong. When you go into the article that’s linked to the Facebook headline it says that the IRS has given people three months to pay without penalty. That is the true part. The headline, which is what most people read, is absolutely incorrect. I’m going to give you a link on a slide coming up here to the guidance and the notice that was released by IRS nobody else just on Wednesday, March the 18th, which tells us that there is no extension in time to file without an extension being filed just like we’ve had in years past. What we have is three additional months for taxpayers to pay their tax that’s due without having any penalties or interest.

I’m kind of a doom and gloomer when it comes to dealing with the government. So I’ll have to say I wouldn’t be at all surprised if we don’t find ourselves six months to a year from now answering all kinds of letters where in fact, IRS does assess penalties for those clients who pay their balances due in July. But nonetheless, the New York Post ad is wrong. I’ve given you the link coming up, coming up forward here, that the filing season has not been extended. Payments due have been extended. So Secretary Mnuchin, I think was kind of flippant in his comments, which said that “well, what’s the big deal? You know, most people file electronically anyway.” And I appreciate a lot of what you’ve had to say. And also the AICPA who has asked all of us to basically take an email letter that they’ve crafted and for us to pretty much sign off on it and forward it to Secretary Mnuchin

and also to our local members of Congress and Senators, basically saying that over 60% of returns are prepared by us… by tax professionals. Now we have to deal with what about the sheltering in place? How are we going to get our information from our clients? How are they feeling about meeting face to face with us? And how do we feel about our clients coming into our offices? So those are all valid reasons. And I see again, that you’re posting those concerns out there on Facebook.

So I know some places you’re just you’re just business as usual. I don’t disagree with it unless there’s something against local law that would prohibit if there’s a lockdown other than essential travel. If there isn’t a lockdown, then that’s going to be a call from your office.

But let me give you a caution out there for all of our clients. Most of our clients are ignorant when it comes to the potential for identity theft. They’re just schlepping information on the emails and sending it to us. I had a packet that was leaned up against the door of my office on the outside. Can you believe that? Somebody just came by, put their stuff outside the building, put it and leaned it up against the door crazy. I would strongly suggest the use of secure portals. Now, I’m no IT guy, but let me tell you a portal has got to be more secure than just attaching things to an email. If you’re not using a portal, you might look at various sources that make them available to you. But if you’ve got the ability to use an online portal, then go ahead and give an introduction to your client to be able to use that and upload their information that way. You know, throughout all of this pandemic that’s going on, let’s not forget that the scammers see this as a ripe opportunity to take advantage of us and our clients. So let’s really, really be careful. Be sure to use the online portals. If clients

want to drop off, let’s make sure that we’re getting information from them and all of that information is kept in a secure place. A lot of times we’re vacating our office for multiple hours – you think the bad guys are? They’re looking for opportunities to break in and mine that information that we’ve got. If we’re going to use emails, some kind of passwords to go back and forth. Let’s keep our information secure. In a real basic type of sense, you know, going up to the corporate deadline, which is the one that always drives me crazy, and then I try to come back to sanity for a little bit. After each client left, I was taking some of these Clorox wipes (and no, I didn’t go buy out of store of them)… But I would take some Clorox wipes and wipe down the front of my desk and the handles on the chairs where people sat, and the door handles or other surfaces that people might have touched. Just to give us a little bit of added added protection. I would avoid handshakes. I would avoid hugs. You know, some clients, they only see us once a year. So they just love to come and see us and they want to give us a hug. Let’s do the elbow thing unless you’re coughing into your elbow. So you want to want to avoid that as well. So be very, very careful with security. Listen, if you feel like the best answer at this point is to go ahead and shut your office down, file extensions on everybody and and shut the office down until this passes, which I don’t know when that’s going to be: do it. But please inform your clients. Maybe send out a mass email as to what you’re intending to do. And give them an opportunity to know what’s going on or to perhaps again, give you that information, either via portal or secure email or drop off or mail — however they want to do it. And we’ll go from there.

Ladies and gentlemen, we’ll get through this. I truly believe as I posted on my own personal Facebook page that you know, over the rainbow, skies are blue and they will remain to be blue. Hang in there. We’ll continue to give you updates as we come along. So this is Tom O’Saben from the University of Illinois Tax School coming to you from my apartment bunker saying we’ll say goodbye for just a while.
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