New York FEMA extension Through February 15th

Parts of New York have the Hurricane Ida-FEMA extension through February 15, 2022.  

We have correctly marked under Special Extension - "New York-Hurricane Ida-FEMA-4615-DR" and so far, only one client has received an email from DOL advising that Form 5500-SF for 2020 has not been received, although it has been.

We have the DOL acceptance of the filing, answered the email and attached a copy of Form 5500-SF.

Anyone else receive a similar DOL email or letter?

Yes I have received many of these emails, both for client that already filed and for clients that have not filed yet but will by February 15th

I have included an attachment for 5500-SF as well as 5509-EZ that I file with the Forms, a Murphy believer.

What do you tell a client when he receives an IRS or DOL love letter and the first response is  "my TPA must have done something wrong for me to get this letter"?

It is never easy when a client receives a notice, but when it happens and they call me I explain the issue and response to the letter. Very few of my clients call accusing us of miss handling the filing of their forms.

With this disaster relief a multitude of my clients have received a CP283 Notice assessing major penalties, and with that IRS letter Notice 1155-G is included which explains how disaster relief is given. All the 5500's were filed with the special extension box checked with state disaster FEMA# and an additional attachment to be safe, and penalty letters were still sent out.

Clearly the clients are in a panic.

So last week I spoke with the IRS, after 4 hours on hold, was told their system was not set to catch addresses within individual state or counties of states given relief under Hurricane IDA or for that matter many of the other disaster declarations announced in these past few months. Their advise fax or mail a response and the penalty should be abated if in fact the address on the 5500 is in a FEMA declared covered area. 

Response letters have been faxed to the IRS and now we wait, I have asked my clients to be patient since the IRS is quite backed up with their responses. What a mess.

We were advised to add "FEMA" to the special extension line, just for that reason.

Clients have been receiving emails from DOL which is surprising as everything goes through EFAST, which is DOL related.

I just responded to another post about these DOL emails it is under the discussion titled

"DOL Email Regarding Missing 5500"