And back on the show with me as my special guest, Sandy Hall with Agent R Block. Sandy, how are you today? I'm doing really good. It's that time of year, tax season is here and I like taxis and most people don't but I do because I get to see you across from you.
We always have a good time before the air. But it's a good time and you're here to help put Agent R Block and put those fears to rest. And we got a lot of things around the cover today. We do.
We got new things in 2017, right? Yes, a lot of new things. Why should we say for the 2016 as we go into 2017, we're filing taxes. Why is the...
this has been a lot of talk and being in news. We want to start off with, why is the IRS holding some refunds until February 15th? Some people filing now, they may be in for a surprise. Right, right.
And that's due to the path act and the path act just stands for protecting Americans from tax hikes act. That's a mouthful fact. But basically what it is is because of the amount of fraudulent tax returns. They're going to basically it's given them more time to go over everything to make sure that everything is part of the course where it's supposed to be.
So the credits are targeted for the rich for the tax identity thieves and fraudsters. Holding tax payers refunds until February 15th along with the mandate that employers send employees W-2s to the IRS by January 31st. Again, it allows the IRS additional time to help prevent revenue loss due to identity theft and refund fraud related to fabricated wages and withholding. Okay, and again, we're talking with Sandy Hall with H&R Block and Sandy before we move on, you know, I want to start off too by letting people know how can I get in touch with you if they have any questions.
All right, well, this year I'm at two different offices. You're busy. I am. I'm at the other back and forth.
But our Martins Ferry office by number is 740-633-5457. Or I go to be at the Hollywood Plaza in Stuemville at 740-346-2463. Or they can always reach me on myself at 740-391-083. I like that.
You even give an out-to-self-the-number of people have questions. They'll give those numbers out a few more times as you know, and any of my guests, they probably get tired of hearing, what's that number again? But I like to give that out several times so people have the opportunity to write that down. And again, as we talk about the millions of taxpayers facing the refund delays coming up this year, Sandy, who is going to be affected by the refund delay?
All right. Well, the IRS is going to hold refunds for returns claiming the earned income tax credit and the additional child tax credit until February 15th. And so there's going to be, you know, possibly a lot of people affected by that. It looks like what?
30 million taxpayers claim that? That's quite a bit. And so we want to just make sure people, you know, they're aware of that. So, you know, if you...
HR Block can help, though, because you guys have a way, maybe if you're going to be delayed, they don't have to be delayed if they come see you guys. Why is that? Well, for clients and the millions of others who want to access their money faster than the IRS can provide a tax refund, H&R Block is now offering a refund advance. Okay.
Or you can go in and get an advance on your refund of up to $1,250 after filing your taxes. There's no... it's a no-interest loan from Medibank, and the loan is repaid from your tax refund once received. And it's available to participate in H&R Block offices for a limited time, and that does end on February 28th.
So, most people, when they come in and they want to do the refund advance, we can run that through, process it. And within 24 hours, they'll get a response whether they're approved or not. Okay. And most people get their money within the same day.
Perfect. So, as we put some of those fears to rest, you guys can come to the rescue there of some people. Yes. Block, they're on out the life preserver.
I like it. Yes, right. I do. And Sandy, as we're talking here about, you know, our tax refunds, you know, back to what should taxpayers do if they expect their refund will be delayed.
And we just talked about one thing that can come in and see you guys, and maybe you can get that advanced refund, like you just said, what other things people can do. And they need to go ahead and file their taxes normally, and file them on time. One of the biggest ways to secure your taxes and to protect it is to file early. Okay.
For some things that they need to do to protect themselves is not to carry their social security numbers in their wallet. Okay. Okay. Not to give out their social security number on the phone or in a public place.
Use a shredder for their documents. Okay. Do not shop online with public Wi-Fi or where information can be intercepted. Want to make sure that's secure.
Yes. Request a copy of your credit report and review all your financial statements. And again, you know, make sure you shred anything with personal information on it. Sandy, you always do a great job here this morning.
And you know what? I'm kind of all over the place because I have my scripts out of my notes out of order. So I'm jumping all around on you here. I got to tell people at home, Sandy's doing a great job keeping up with me here because I'm like Roadrunner over here.
I just hit the ground and I'm here and I'm a little bit there. Oh, you're fine. You're fine. That's how we can have confidence though.
People, they come in and you guys take care of them because you can keep up with us. So I scatter bring people like me. You're doing a great job. Yeah.
They need to do is come in and give us all their tax documents and we'll be able to put everything in order and get everything processed for them. And Sandy and I'm sure, you know, when you guys will make sure of this, but even if somebody's thinking, you know, they're at home, they're like, well, I've got the simplest taxes. I can fill this stuff out and other, you know, it wouldn't hurt to bring it in for you guys. It looked just in case you just never know, right?
There's so many different changing tax laws and there is a lot of things that can impact your refund loss of job education. If you went to school or you graduated or you had a child graduate, you know, if you were expecting a pay cut or a loss of job or lay off or something due to the winter months, things like that can really impact your refund. Mary to birth of a child. So come and bring it into us and we can help you get this year sorted out, but we can also give you a path to follow and stuff for the next few years as well.
And I know also another thing affects people. What this affects me is I talk about all the time the health insurance penalty. So there's always, you know, somebody like me, I'm penalized. So Uncle Sam got to keep a big portion of my tax return.
That's horrible. That's horrible. But yes, the person, the person for lap fee penalty has increased more than 630% since it was first implemented in 2014. And taxpayers will have to pay a penalty of $695 per uncovered adult plus $347.50 per uncovered child up to a maximum of 2085 or 2.5% of their household income over the filing threshold.
So that means that a family of $4 or $60,000 would pay a penalty of more than $2,000. Well, that's quite a chunk of money. Yeah, that is a big chunk. And in some cases, uninsured taxpayers may qualify for an exemption from the penalty.
And a qualified tax professional can go over everything with you to see if you can't qualify for an exemption. Yeah, and I've already checked. I don't qualify for an exemption. I know.
Fortunately, Sammy's like, sorry, Paul, you're welcome in my world, right? Right? Again, we're talking with Sandy Hall with H&R Block. It's time tax deadline is April 18th this year.
April 18th. Yes. Okay, so we've got time, but we don't want procrastinators. We want people to get that in.
Imagine Sandy, and I'm just, like I always do talking off the top of my head here, the procrastinators easy for me to say, are probably people who owe maybe or maybe it's not because I'm thinking if you're getting money back, you're probably acting pretty quick. Yes, if you're getting money back, you usually act pretty quick as soon as you get those W-2s, but it is very important to wait on all of your tax documents, so we don't have to go in and amend. Okay. But we will, if you get one that you forgot about or something came in that you wasn't aware of.
Mm-hmm. So, but yes, file early if you can. That is, like I said, one of the ways to protect yourself against identity theft or tax identity theft. Sure.
But, you know, people that may think that they owe as well, and maybe that's not the case. So come in and we go over everything with you and let you know. Perfect. And now some other tips too when it comes to what things to watch out for, and I know you touched on some of this.
Just reminding folks, because I've got to receive those emails before it looked credible, but you don't want to let people remind them that IRS never emails or connects on social media to request personal information. Never happens. Correct. You know, and as you guys provide more from IRS will never call to me on the media payment.
You know, that's a scam a lot of people. I think a lot of elderly folks maybe, or we hear IRS and we tend to clean them up, so that threat does work. Right. The IRS is always going to contact you first by mail.
And if you do, you know, receive one of those phone calls and stuff, you can report the phone calls, emails or letters from the IRS and personators to the Treasury Department. But it is very important because, yeah, last year we got a lot of phone calls stating people were calling, pretending to be the IRS, and they will always contact you by mail first. And that reporting number, I'll give that out. It's an 800 number.
It's 800-366-4484. So again, that's 800-366-4484. And speaking of phone numbers, Sandy, you know, it's on. It's all out here until April 18th.
Your phone numbers, if anybody has any questions, they want to get in touch with you. All right. Well, they can contact me at the Martinsbury office at 740-633-5457 or Hollywood Plaza Office in Stuemville at 740-346-2463, or they can reach me on my cell at 740-391-1083, or if they want to find a more office that's located a little closer to them, they can always go on to HRblock.com and find that as well. Perfect.
Sandy, any final thoughts as we wrap up? I think we covered a lot of ground, but I know we'll be seeing you in here more through the taxis. I'm sure there's a lot more things we can mention, but we kind of just want to scratch the surface here. But you know, for more in-depth people give you guys a call of something maybe they said, well, Paul, you didn't ask her this, which is probably often the case.
I don't, but they can call you. Rest assured you'll answer those questions. And I guarantee you, Sandy, she's friendly and ready to help everybody. And I know HRblock's lucky to have you.
Thank you. So I always want to thank you. And I want to thank Shari to Hutton on the corporate level, the public relations setting, everything up, making this possible for you to come in here and appreciate her doing that as well. I'm jealous because she recently got to be on Steve Harvey's show.
I know, she was great. She was great. I'm jealous. She had a good time.
And so I thank her. And I thank you for stopping by today, Sandy. All right, Paul. I do want to say one thing.
That's perfect. All right. If you do come into H&R Block right now, we are offering our 1040 EZs free. Okay.
And that is available until February 28th. Okay. And to touch on that refund advance again, you can get up to $1,250. And that could be taken out of your refund, paid back.
And that is also available until February 28th. Great. Well, Sandy, I appreciate just off and by today. Well, thank you very much, Paul.
And go see the folks at H&R Block. They'll take good care of you. Sandy again, thanks.