Category: Taxes and Retirement

The Kentucky Career Center (KCC) Unemployment manages the states’ unemployment insurance program, systems and benefit processing/payments. With the expiry the pandemic unemployment programs, only traditional/regular state unemployment is available for full or partial unemployment claims. The table below provides key details on the latest unemployment benefits and qualifying wage requirements.…

Education choice is an important topic for a lot of American families. And over the last few years there has been a debate about putting more educational choice (and financial support) back in the hands of parents versus balancing the needs for adequate funding of public schools. This has manifested…

While the IRS provides several online tools and options to get information on your personal tax (1040) return, business owners have to instead call the IRS to get help with questions related to corporate refunds. The IRS have themselves stated that for any business related tax returns and refund information,…

Much to my disappointment I ended up owing taxes when I filed my tax return this year. Or said another way I had a tax liability to the IRS. While paying taxes I legally owe is not itself a bad thing, after all I did not give an interest free…

Transaction codes are used on IRS tax transcripts to provide information for individual and business filers into what is or has happened with their tax return processing, reasons for potential delays, when a refund will be paid or why it is delayed. Given the long delays in IRS processing over the…

During the COVID pandemic years of 2020 and 2021, the American Rescue Plan (ARPA) included legislation that provided a “lookback” rule that allowed tax filers to use prior year income levels to calculate qualification for many of the expanded tax credits and stimulus programs. This was done to allow the…

Are we headed for a recession or we are already in one? That's the question many people asking nowadays. Even if your financial situation is relatively stable today, its important to pay attention to the economic headwinds. While we can all hope for the best, we should plan and prepare…

With short-term interest spiking thanks to the Federal reserve's aggressive rate hiking cycle, the yield on short term treasuries have reached levels not seen in several years. In fact, the rates for the 1 year and 2 year treasury bonds are much higher than the average APY on the highest…

[November Update] With additional funding in place now, the IRS has now hired nearly 5,000 people across their operations and taxpayer assistance centers to deal with filing backlogs, delayed processing and customer service issues. Along with a new IRS commissioner (Danny Werfel) in 2023, the IRS is gearing up for…

Given ongoing processing delays, pandemic constraints, the IRS is providing a one-time relief payment for penalty fees they charged related to late filings of 2019 or 2020 federal returns. The total value of these penalties is estimated at $1.2 billion, meaning millions of tax filers will be getting a IRS refund…

The date for filing a tax return filing extension for the current tax season is April 15th. Maine and Massachusetts have 2 extra days due to state holidays. Not filing for an extension or not paying your tax liability could mean some stiff penalties. Given the ongoing IRS processing delays,…

With pandemic restrictions easing, many IRS offices are reopening to help tax filers struggling to get updates on their tax returns or who have been waiting weeks/months to get their refund payment, including missing stimulus checks and new tax credits. While the IRS says to check online for the latest…

Folks who have been waiting for a long time on their tax return processing and refund status may see transaction code 290 and 291 on their (free) IRS tax transcript once processing is moved forward by the IRS. Per the screenshot below, transaction code 290 will generally be accompanied by…