HSA

The IRS has announced that tax filing season will begin on January 24, 2022. The filing deadline for 2021 tax returns or requests for extension is April 18, 2022, for most taxpayers because of Emancipation Day in Washington, D.C. For taxpayers in Maine and Massachusetts, the deadline to file is April 19, 2022, because of Patriots’ Day. Taxpayers who request an extension will have until October 17, 2022, to file their 2021 returns.

The IRS has released a pre-publication version of proposed regulations amending rules intended to increase the filing of electronic returns in accordance with the Taxpayer First Act of 2019. Additionally, the IRS has withdrawn previously proposed regulations regarding electronic filing that were published on May 31, 2018.

Senator Ben Sasse (R-NE) recently introduced two bills aimed at providing more flexibility for the use of health savings accounts (HSAs). Senate bill 2113 proposes to expand permissible distributions from an employee’s health flexible spending arrangement or health reimbursement arrangement to the employee’s HSA. Senate bill 2099 proposes to make HSAs more broadly available by removing the requirement that individuals be enrolled in a high deductible health plan. Further details of these proposals have not yet been made available.

IRS Revenue Procedure (Rev. Proc.) 2021-25 provides the 2022 inflation-adjusted amounts for health savings accounts (HSAs) and the maximum amount that may be made newly available for expected benefit health reimbursement arrangements (HRAs).

The IRS has issued Notice 2021-21, in which the IRS makes official the previously announced delay of the April 15, 2021 federal income tax filing due date for individuals for the 2020 tax year to May 17, 2021. This delay is a result of the ongoing COVID-19 Emergency Declaration issued in March 2020.

The IRS has issued Announcement 2021-7, indicating that amounts paid for personal protective equipment (PPE)—such as masks, hand sanitizer, and sanitizing wipes—that are primarily used to prevent the spread of COVID-19, are treated as amounts paid for medical care under Internal Revenue Code Section 213(d). As a result, the amounts are also eligible to be paid or reimbursed under health flexible spending arrangements (FSAs), health reimbursement arrangements (HRAs), and health savings accounts (HSAs).

The Treasury Department and IRS have announced that tax filing due dates for 2020 tax year federal income tax returns, including the federal income tax payment deadline, will be automatically extended from April 15, 2021, to May 17, 2021. No special form must be filed to request the filing extension. The IRS will be providing formal guidance in the coming days.

The economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has been felt far and wide, both in the U.S. and globally. But what has it meant for tax-advantaged savings levels in vehicles such as retirement , 529, and health savings & flexible spending accounts? Our proprietary data, tracked over the course of 2020, reveal shifts in contribution and withdrawal behaviors by business owners and individuals in response to the financial challenges posed by the pandemic. Overall, these insights suggest a continued appreciation for the importance of savings and the ability to access these savings when needed.

The IRS has issued Notice 2021-15, providing additional guidance and flexibility to employee benefit plans offering health FSA and dependent care arrangements. Because of COVID-19, employees participating in these programs are more likely to have unused amounts in these accounts as a result of changes in anticipated expenses during the pandemic. To qualify as a cafeteria plan under IRC Section 125, funds remaining at the end of the plan year generally cannot be carried over to future plan years, and restrictions apply when modifying elections after the start of the plan year.

At the end of 2019, the Internal Revenue Code (IRC) was amended to create a mandatory 60-day postponement for certain federal tax-related deadlines in the event of a disaster. This new provision was designed to ensure that affected taxpayers would have guaranteed relief while recovering from a natural disaster or other emergency. But this measure didn’t seem to affect how the IRS had already been responding to such events. In fact, the new law created some ambiguity.