17149: 2021 March Broadcasts - American Rescue Plan Updates

The President is expected to sign a bill this week which will provide relief for the continued impact of COVID-19. The American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 extends unemployment benefits, provides funding for state and local governments, supports vaccine rollouts, expands the child tax credit, makes a portion of unemployment compensation nontaxable for certain filers, and gives many Americans an additional Economic Impact Payment.

There are a couple of items in the bill that will affect 2020 tax returns, including the tax waiver for unemployment compensation up to $10,200 for many taxpayers and elimination of repayment of the Advance Premium Tax Credit. We realize you may have a lot of questions regarding the execution of the provisions and we want to assure you that Drake Software is working closely with the IRS and state taxing authorities as they update their forms, instructions and systems to accommodate the changes. 

Unemployment Compensation - New Exclusion Broadcast Released 03.13.2021

Last night, the IRS released more details on how to report the new exclusion of up to $10,200 (per spouse) of Unemployment Compensation.

Our goal, as always, is to make timely changes to the software. We ask for your continued patience while we analyze, implement and test the necessary software changes. We will be working diligently to incorporate this new Unemployment Compensation Exclusion Worksheet and we'll email you again when we release the update.

In addition, we are actively working with state tax agencies to determine how states plan to address the federal tax law changes brought about by the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. For state conformity updates, please see KB article 17148. We will update this article as we receive information from the states.

Please stay tuned for information about the Advance Premium Tax Credit (APTC) — the IRS's first priority was the Unemployment Exclusion change and we expect more information on the APTC in the near future.

The IRS has advised that you should not yet amend returns that had Unemployment Compensation or Repayment of the Advance Premium Tax Credit. Official IRS guidance is forthcoming.