Local accountant prepares for tax season during pandemic

The pandemic has brought hardship for many families in a financial stage. Sherita Duff of Diamond Financial Tax says a lot of incidents impacted tax circumstances and they are seeing a decrease in customers.

“So you have a lot of people that had to depend on unemployment to make certain ends meet. You also had businesses that were struggling," said Sherita Duff, Director of Diamond Financial Tax. "I’m sure a lot of people have decided to self file and prepare themselves.”

Over this three-month rush, people will be looking to file their yearly tax returns and because of that, Duff is making sure her business is safe for customers to enter.

“People are still afraid to go to in-person visits. We as well as other tax offices around the city have had to make amendments," said Duff. "We’ve had to restructure our offices to make sure that we’re distancing--we’ve had to limit the amount of people that come in.”

To help those employed this tax season around, the government has come up with a lookback process in order to receive a maximum refund on your return.

“If your income is lower this year, than it was last year the IRS is giving you an opportunity to look back at your form return and if your income is lower, they’ll allow you to use some of those forms from last year so you’re not impacted," said Duff.

Duff encourages those who will be visiting an office to file taxes to continue to stay aware of CDC guidelines.