 Internal Revenue Service IRS tax news. Employee urged to electronically file payroll tax returns by October 31st. Oh crap, the IRS is having another urge. The last time I resisted one of those, it wasn't pretty. Okay, I'll do it IRS, I'll do it. Honestly, if I don't, in an attempt to find a punishment that fits the crime in their distorted mind, if I don't file electronically, they'll probably electrocute me. You know what I mean? Like the rationale of the IRS going something like this. We'll use this electricity to power the payroll filing or we can use it to power your electrocuted pubic hairs to stay at odd end. That is until they burst into a ball of flames. It's your choice. Or possibly they'll just electrocute my money right in front of my eyes. Because you know the government's always looking for new, exciting ways to burn it. Just kidding, but here's another joke. President Biden handling the economy is like dealing with a crooked mortgage broker before the Great Recession. You're never going to regret this, Ray. Say, don't worry. The American people will never regret this. My parents left me that house. I was born there. You're not going to lose the house. I mean, honestly, 30 to 40 trillion in debt is like totally normal these days. Everybody has three mortgages nowadays. Read my lips. The interest on the debt is not a problem. But at 19%, you didn't even bargain with the guy. Ray, for your information, the interest rate alone for the first five years comes to $95,000. Will you guys relax? IR 2022-184, October 19, 2022, Washington. The Internal Revenue Service today reminded employers to file the next quarterly payroll tax return by the approaching October 31, 2022 deadline. That's once again October 31, 2022 due date. And urge them to do so electronically while paper filing is available. The IRS strongly encourages e-filing. E-filing is the most secure, accurate method to file returns and saves taxpayers time. So they're trying to kind of market you and sell you on the e-filing. Obviously, I'm not completely sure it's the most secure type of filing method as opposed to, you know, paper filing or something like that. However, it seems that's the direction everything is going, even with banking and other things that require a high level of security and so on and so forth. So it is what it is. So e-filing is easy with auto-populating forms and schedules with a step-by-step process that performs calculations for the employer. So if you file electronically, some of the fields will populate a little bit faster possibly and possibly make it a little bit easier to do some of the calculations. That is helpful because it does have like a double check kind of format similar to using software. If you're to do that, less likely to make a simple math errors within the calculations. The IRS acknowledges receipt of e-file returns within 24 hours giving taxpayers reassurance that their return was not misplaced or lost in the mail. So that can be nice because again, it's nice to be able to see that the return has been processed. So I'm not going to get hit with late penalty and interest types of payments as well. E-file users also receive missing information alerts. So clearly if there's a problem and the IRS has an issue, it's nice if they at least notify you. So you can jump on and fix whatever needs to be fixed so you can move forward with your business. So two options to electronically file payroll tax returns. Employers can choose to self-file by purchasing IRS-approved software. There's a link to that here that meets their specific needs. There may be a fee to electronically filed returns through the software and the software will require a signature to e-file the returns. Clearly the fee is going to be part of the downside of the process. Depending on the software they choose, taxpayers will have one or both of the following options. Apply for an online signature, PIN. So now the problem here is how do I get the authorization signature to the IRS? This is another area where a lot of businesses have this kind of electronic e-signature format. Even the IRS is using their website for some things like power of attorneys, I believe, to be able to do some e-signatures. But there's still kind of an issue with the whole signature processing and how secure they believe the e-signature kind of thing is and so on. So applying for an online signature PIN or you've got the scan and attached form 8453 EMP Employment Tax Declaration for an IRS e-file return. There's a link to that here for the required signature. The second option for employers is to hire a tax professional to prepare and file their employment tax returns. So when you have payroll taxes, you really do want to think out beforehand what the best strategy is to process your payroll returns because it is one of those areas where you're most likely to kind of have problems. In other words, you're most likely to get like sued by the employees for sadly enough. That's just the case of it. So you want to make sure that you have everything documented the way it should be documented. And you would like to do it correct the first time because if you get to the end of the year, for example, and then realize while doing the W2s, W3s, 1099s, W2s, W3s, the 940s and 941s, that there's a problem going back and fixing it is kind of a tedious task within payroll. So payroll is one of those things where I think the adage of measure twice cut once is a better adage than I'm going to tinker with it until I fix it, which is a perfectly good method for many things, but possibly not payroll. So then the question is you could do the payroll yourself or you might hire someone else, like a third-party payroll provider to help you to be processing the payroll and meet some of those HR requirements and so on, like reporting all the pay stubs and that kind of stuff and hopefully helping with the forms that need to be reported, like the 940s to 941s, the W2s, the W3s, and possibly state forms. Okay, so taxpayers can use the authorized IRS e-file provider locator service to find a tax professional who can file on behalf of the business. For more information on electronic filing of payroll tax returns, see the e-file employment tax form page. There's a link to that here. Tax relief in disaster situations. Employers can find information on the most recent tax relief provisions for taxpayers affected by disaster situations on IRS.gov. There's a link to that here. See FAQs for disaster victims. There's a link to that here for information about the definition of an affected taxpayer. IRS news from around the nation. There's a link to that here. Provides IRS news specific to local areas, primarily disaster relief or tax provisions that affect certain states. So there's links to all that stuff here that we said there was a link to and there'll be a link to this in the description.