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After months of only bad news about the spread of COVID-19, recent announcements of successful trials of three different vaccines bring a sense of optimism that the return to “normal” is on the way. Pfizer was first, and chartered flights bringing the vaccine to the U.S. from Belgium began on November 27. By mid-December, people may begin receiving that vaccine. A vaccine by Moderna has also completed trials and that…  Read more

One of the positive side effects of the pandemic has been reduced traffic on interstate highways. A group of amateur race car drivers decided to take advantage of the empty roads to revive the “Cannonball Run,” a highly illegal endurance race from Manhattan to Los Angeles. The object of this race is to make the run faster than anyone else. Teams plan for months, fine-tuning routes to consider traffic light…  Read more

All around the world, pandemic fatigue is setting in, as the need for social contact outweighs the commitment to following restrictive rules. Unfortunately, this is coinciding with a surge in infection rates in the U.S. and Europe. Asian countries, on the other hand, are managing to return to mostly normal. New infections in China, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, and Hong Kong, combined, have been around 1,000 per day, while here…  Read more

Prior to COVID-19, models of what could happen during a pandemic overstated the possible global death toll, but understated the potential hit to GDP. But as a series in The Economist explains, our current pandemic may have lasting impact. The impacts of shutting down schools for months at a time may persist for decades. Governments around the world are issuing debt at levels never before seen to finance support for…  Read more

Fall is here, and with it, the beautiful colors of the season. Hikes and drives to see the colors are still something we can do, despite COVID-19, as this guide in the New York Times reminds us, with pictures and suggestions across the country. The Berkshires in Massachusetts, Ohio’s Cuyahoga Valley National Park, West Virginia’s Spruce Knob, Maine’s Grafton Notch, Percy Warner Park and Radnor Lake near Nashville, and Guanella…  Read more

With our normal routines turned upside down, people have found as many ways to cope with the pandemic as there are neighborhoods. I love the section of the New York Times showing a series of postcard vignettes of neighbors coming together to connect and help each other, check it out. In Los Angeles, a family picks citrus fruit from trees in their neighborhood, sharing the bounty with the owners of the trees…  Read more

Sleep is as close to a panacea as we are likely to get in our lifetimes: it helps us recover from injuries and illness, plays a vital role in memory formation, and helps keep us healthy. Disrupting our sleep has an adverse impact on nearly every system in our bodies. So it’s perhaps not surprising that a recent study by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that unemployment disrupts…  Read more

After a solid week of number-crunching, a supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Lab in Tennessee analyzed the genetics of the COVID-19 virus to understand why it impacts so many different systems of the body. Analysis of the data resulted in a new theory about how the virus operates and why it causes so much havoc. Unlike many viruses that target just one or two systems in the body, the researchers…  Read more

Shutting down economies around the world to fight the coronavirus has been a blunt and costly instrument, as this piece in the Wall Street Journal describes. Taiwan, South Korea and Hong Kong demonstrated that it was possible to reduce infection rates by widespread testing, contact tracing, cutting off travel with China and adopting masks. Such stringent controls were not possible in most states in the U.S., so instead we resorted…  Read more

It’s been almost 3 weeks and we accountants, employers and employees have been waiting for answers so that we can make an informed decision.  When I first read the memo I was concerned about the unforeseen consequences.  Please click through to my blog post of August 10th, for the full details and concerns as next week starts the clock and I am still concerned. So are many who have been…  Read more

In the past, automation and technological advances created more jobs than it disrupted, and innovation has greatly improved our lives. However, as this article in the Wall Street Journal reports, economists caution that the COVID-19 pandemic may have accelerated the changes that have already been happening for the last several decades which may be creating a divide between skilled and low-skilled workers. “For many professionals, technology has been a lifeline…  Read more

Until scientists develop an effective and safe vaccine, and that vaccine is administered to millions of people, our best means of protection from COVID-19 is herd immunity. Recent models hint that the protective effects of a population that has already been infected by the COVID-19 virus may exist at much lower percentages than previously thought. Instead of requiring that 70 to 80 percent of a population be immune, that threshold…  Read more

Even though unemployment still remains high, and the US economy took a nosedive during the second quarter of 2020, US households managed to decrease their overall debt for the first time in six years. Even in the face of unemployment, credit card debt dropped by $76 billion during the second quarter as households cut back on non-essential spending. In the first six months of 2020, consumers reduced their credit card…  Read more

Presidential Memoranda – Budget & Spending Issued on: August 8, 2020 Memorandum on Deferring Payroll Tax Obligations in Light of the Ongoing COVID-19 Disaster I knew it was too good to be true that this weekend I would not be studying yet another new tax act, policy, rev.proc. or similar! This weekend the White House has issued a Memorandum on Deferring Payroll Tax Obligations in Light of the Ongoing COVID-19 Disaster. Here…  Read more

Perhaps the most challenging part of dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic is that many infected people never show symptoms or have such mild symptoms it’s easy to chalk that out-of-sorts feeling to a poor night of sleeping. Some estimate that as many as 40% of those infected never exhibit symptoms, and these people could be shedding nearly as much contagious virus as those with full-blown symptoms. This high rate of…  Read more

This tax season which (really) started December 2019 and just ended Wednesday,  July 15th as we e-filed the last of the 2019 personal tax return extensions gives new meaning to the quote from Charles Dickens’, A Tale of Two Cities. While drafting the polling questions for our week’s NCCPAP tax and accounting live stream seminar  which is focused on individual and business tax consequences of  working at a “home location”…  Read more

It’s the morning of July 15, 2020 and as I post this the clock is ticking on the last day of “Tax Season 2020”.  With the  countdown to the end of Tax Season 2020 on the opportunity will pass for a few time sensitive actions on your part: Today is the last day you can timely pay your 2019 tax liability with either your tax return or extension and the…  Read more

The July 15th deadline is coming up, but it’s not too late to make an IRA contribution! Even though tax filing season is well underway, there is still time to make a regular (traditional) IRA contribution for 2019. You have until your tax return due date (not including extensions). For most taxpayers, the contribution deadline is July 15, 2020. Watch the video to see what actions to take now: Making a last-minute…  Read more

The PPP loan applications close today at midnight, the rules have relaxed, so if you have not yet applied, today is the day to do so. It’s hard to believe that we have been researching the guidance on these programs for four (4) months and there are still so many unanswered questions. Please follow this link for the SBA Lender Match Tool if you have not applied yet. If you…  Read more

I have been looking forward to seeing my staff in person and had ordered special “cute masks” with filters, high powered cleaning products, a digital thermometer, created a staggered in office work schedule, set up a hand sanitizer station and started our visitor log.  Over the weekend I finalized our plan and certified our readiness. As a New York City accounting office we were all set for phase 2, our…  Read more