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Tax Law

Tax law changes and differences between federal & NJ tax laws

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Tax Law Changes

The only thing constant is that tax laws will change.

Sometimes, Congress will pass a tax law change near the end of the year or even early in the next year that we need to handle.

Extenders – tax provisions that expire unless Congress decides to continue them. (i.e., PMI deduction, Energy credits)

The Tax Cut and Jobs act of 2017 doubled the standard deduction reducing the number of taxpayers who itemize.

During COVID, Congress passed new legislation that included tax laws that were effective only for tax years 2020 & 2021.

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Tax Law Changes – What we do

We will cover the tax law changes effecting TY 2022 during our Comprehensive 2-day training in January.

You will find details on the tax law changes and how they effect our clients at TP4F / Student / What’s New for TY 2022.

Watch for Training Notes and emails throughout the training and filing season as new information comes our way.

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Tools for Handling NJ information

NJ generally follows Federal tax law. However, there are some issues that can make a substantial difference to our clients.

Tax Slayer data entry:

Where tax law is the same, entries into the federal section will be automatically carried to the client’s NJ return.
Some differences are entered directly in the Federal input screens.
Other differences must be noted manually on our “NJ Checklist” form for entry directly into the NJ input screens.

We have good reference tools in TP4F / Preparer / Work Aides.

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Training Plan

Classroom, Self study & Virtual

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Training dates for New Volunteers

New Volunteer Tax Counselor Training (4 days) – Tue, Nov 29, Thu, Dec 1, Tue, Dec 6 & Thu, Dec 8.

Comprehensive Training for all Volunteer tax counselors (2 days) :

Wed/Thu, Jan 4-5 OR Tue/Wed, Jan 10-11

Client Facilitator training session – Tuesday, Jan 17.

Open Special Topics session – Thursday, Jan 19.

All Hands (NJ Dep’t of Revenue) Training – Tuesday, Jan 24.

Week of Jan 25 - 31 – Printer check at your site

We start off with training for our new volunteer tax preparers. This is 4 days of classroom training beginning on Nov 29^th. And continuing Dec 1st, 6th and 8^th.These sessions will introduce you to our tax preparation process, the software and hardware tools we use and start you preparing practice tax returns. In early January, we have two 2-day sessions for all tax counselors (both new and returning) where we will go over some more practice problems, review key tax law topics and learn about changes in tax law for this year. Our Client Facilitators have a training session on January 17^th and all preparers will have another general session on January 19^th where we will review some of the tax topics that can be more difficult or just need some more training. Our All Hands meeting on January 24^th is the last in-person training session before the start of the season. We will focus on New Jersey tax issues and how they differ from Federal tax law in this session. Finally, you will have a meeting at the site where you will be working in the week before the first client day to meet your co-workers and make sure you can connect to the local network and printers.

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Other Training Requirements

In addition to the in person and virtual training sessions, you will have homework.

Homework consists of viewing pre-recorded presentations and completing practice tax returns using our on-line Practice Lab software.

Most of our sessions will have pre-assignments that you will need to complete before the training session.

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Training Notes & BurlCo site

I will issue a series of training notes by email (numbered) that point volunteers to the homework, resources and problems that you will need to complete during training.

You will find our training notes and presentations on the Training page of our BurlCo site. I will produce additional slide and video presentations that explain or supplement the in-person training this year.

I will highlight the tax law, resource tools and TSO entry lessons from each problem that is assigned.

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Practice Problems

Rosemont & Conway

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Helen Rosemont

Married filing separately

Employment (W-2) income

Unemployment (1099-G) income

Direct deposit of refund.

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Charles and Carol Conway

Married couple with no dependents

Renters in New Jersey

Employment (W-2) & Interest (1099-INT) income

Unemployment (1099-G) income.

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Homework – During New Vol Training

Go to TP4F / Student / Familiarization / Introduction

Listen to the following Lessons and Movies

FAM-31 IRS 1040.pdf
FAM-32 NJ 1040.pdf
FAM-30 Intake sheet.pdf
FAM-33 NJ Checklist

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Homework – Due on Day 3, Dec 6

Review the material and practice problems from days 1 & 2. Make notes for your reference.

Go to TP4F / Student / Familiarization and listen to the Movie FAM-37 “Introduce Brown Scenario”

Start new tax returns (through step 1, Basic Information) from the Familiarization section on the student page in TP4F for:

Troy & Yvonne McCook
Henry & Mary Brown
Use information from the Intake/Interview form and scenario