 Internal revenue service IRS tax news $1.2 billion in IRS penalty relief refunds coming for certain 2019 and 2020 tax returns. Thank you so much for the relief IRS. What are you talking about? Taxpayers says the IRS this relief isn't for you. This release for the penalties as clearly stated in the name, penalty relief. I mean, these poor penalties have been worked half to death squeezing money out of the pockets of you dang disobedient taxpayers. Penalty needs relief too, you know. Power to the penalties. Made this respite result in them returning stronger than ever. Hopefully one day they'll be well enough to once again hold a whip. The president's administration explained that you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink. It's like that old Scandinavian saying, you can lead a herring to water, but you have to walk really fast or you'll die. It's like, well, hold on a second here. This here, this hole you let us to, it's a pool of piss. This is an art. This isn't even entertainment. This blows. The horse isn't stupid. See, this is exactly the kind of thing I was talking about. I mean, this is ridiculous. I vote that we let the horse lead. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him party. That way we're at least 10 times more likely to find some water. Unless you have beer water, beer water, quench your sober. COVID tax tip 2022-139, September 12, 2022. To help struggling taxpayers affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, the IRS recently issued notice 2022-36. There's a link to that here, which provides penalty relief to most people and businesses who filed certain 2019 or 2020 returns late. So I'm a little bit skeptical of this move because it looks kind of like they're doing this to look like it's another stimulus payment because they're sending money out, but it's not actually a stimulus payment. It's penalty of relief. You might say who cares as long as they're sending money out. But it seems to me that they keep on doing these kind of things that incentivize people not to comply with the tax code because you only get the benefit if you didn't comply with the tax code. That seems kind of backwards in terms of the incentives that you'd want to be doing. Yeah, I mean, you would think that they'd say, well, you had a tough time and you filed anyways, and therefore we're going to give you relief or at least not penalize you by not giving you idle anyways. In any case, to qualify for this relief, any eligible income tax return not already filed must be filed on or before September 30, 2022. The agency is also taking an additional step to help those who paid these penalties already. Nearly 1.6 million taxpayers will automatically receive more than $1.2 billion in refunds and credits. And I think this is kind of what they were going for here to be able to send out those checks personally. I kind of skeptical on this, but because that looks like it's a stimulus check and so on and stimulus checks are popular. In any case, many of these payments will go out by the end of September. So if you already paid the payment on the penalty and now they're removing the penalty, then they're going to have to refund the payments. So which returns are eligible? The relief applies to the failure to file penalty. So people that didn't file on time, right? The penalty is typically assessed at a rate of 5% a month, up to 25% of the unpaid tax when a federal income tax return is filed late. And again, you could have some justification this time because you might have more people that said, I can't pay my taxes. I don't know what to do. So they just panicked and didn't file. But again, you would think that you wouldn't penalize the people that did file because that's an avoidable tax if you filed the tax return, even if you owed money. But in any case, it applies to forms in both the 1040 and 1120 series as well as other lists listed in the notice. Small business employers and other businesses may also be eligible. In addition, the IRS providing penalty relief to small businesses. Employers and other businesses required to file various information returns such as those in the 1099 series to qualify for relief eligible 2019 returns must have been filed by August 1, 2020. And eligible 2020 returns must have been filed by August 1, 2021. A 2019 return will be considered timely for purposes of relief if it was filed by August 3, 2020 and a 2020 return if it was filed by August 2, 2021. Taxpayers should review notice 2022-36 for full details on the information returns that are eligible for relief. The notice also provides details on relief for certain international information return penalties that are assessed systematically or during return processing. To qualify any eligible tax return must be filed on or before September 30, 2022. However, this relief does not apply if the penalty was assessed as part of an examination, which tax returns are not eligible. Penalty relief is not available in all situations such as where a fraudulent return was filed. So obviously fraud usually is good. They're not going to waive the penalty. Where the penalties are part of an accepted offer in compromise or a closing agreement or where the penalties were finally determined by a court. For complete details, taxpayers should read notice 2022-36 available on IRS.gov. Other penalties such as failure to pay penalties are not eligible. So again, it seems kind of funny because you would think that the penalty that would be avoidable would be the penalty to file. You can still file even if you can't pay and the penalty that you can't avoid if you had an issue with money during the pandemic would be the payment being able to pay. You got plenty of time to file, you don't have the time. So again, something just seems a little unusual in terms of how they came up with that. But in any case, however, taxpayers may use existing penalty relief procedures for penalties not eligible under notice 2022-36. More information about existing procedures is available on the penalty relief page of IRS.gov. There's a link to this stuff here. There'll be a link to this in the description.