As a tax adviser, you may have recently installed a tax software update to take into account the unemployment compensation exclusion for 2020 passed as part of the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 and found at IRC §85(c). Now it turns out that, due to an IRS change of heart on how to read IRC §85(c)(2)(B), your software may now be subjecting unemployment to tax the IRS has now decided is not to be subject to such tax.

On March 12, 2021, the IRS provided updated instructions on their website for preparing returns that have excludable unemployment compensation.[1] However, on March 23, 2021 the IRS made a significant change in those instructions.[2]

Originally the IRS instructions had taxpayers include the unemployment compensation in determining the modified AGI (reading “without regard to this section” in IRC §85(c)(2)(B) to mean without regard to the exclusion at IRC §85(c)) but now they have decided that means without regard to any unemployment compensation covered by §85.

The Senate version of the American Rescue Plan of 2021 added a special rule that applies to unemployment compensation for taxable years beginning in 2020. The taxpayer may exclude up to $10,200 of unemployment compensation from income if the adjusted gross income of the taxpayer (as computed under the rules for this provision) is less than $150,000. If a joint return is filed, then each spouse can exclude up to $10,200 of their own unemployment compensation—but note that the adjusted gross income cut-off does not go up for the married couple.[1]

The concept of a “claim-of-right” can be confusing for both taxpayers and tax professionals.  In the case of Yoklic v. Commissioner, TC Memo. 2017-143, a taxpayer did not include unemployment benefits received in 2012 in income because the state agency administering the benefits (Arizona’s Department of Economic Security (DES)) had determined he was not entitled to the benefits, and Mr. Yoklic repaid those benefits in 2013.

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