Dear clients and friends,

I sincerely hope that this email finds you, your colleagues and your family members healthy and safe.

As Mangold Anker Phillips and our affiliates respond to both the viral threat of COVID-19 and its effects in the marketplace, one of our top priorities is the health and well-being of our employees and clients. Our other main priority is being there for our clients to help them however we can, and working together to meet the current economic, business and safety challenges we’re all facing right now.

This is without question an uncertain and uncomfortable time. Situations like these bring difficulty and worry about your business and your employees; about how to navigate the COVID-19 environment and its ongoing impact. We empathize and want you to know that we’re here to help.

I am pleased to share that there have been no reported suspected or confirmed cases of COVID-19 among any of our team members or in any of our offices. This is good news, and we are working diligently with our teams to help everyone stay healthy and protected. We’re also closely monitoring developments through both the CDC web site and state and local health departments.

Looking ahead, we want you to know about the actions we’re taking to help meet the above top priorities.

Our staff is now fully working remotely with the exception of one administrative person in each office to receive mail and packages. Most of our staff are accustomed to working remotely most of the time, so this is not a major change for us. We have employed the technology infrastructure to enable our team members to work remotely for over a decade. If you must drop off printed information, we will isolate it for a short period then our administrative staff will scan everything and store it to be returned to you later.

We have suspended all company travel and events and face to face meetings, both internally and with clients. While we prefer to see clients in person during this very active time of the year, it makes more sense right now to utilize our remote meeting tools to meet and exchange data. We use GoToMeeting and Microsoft Teams for remote meetings and video calls. If you are unfamiliar with or need assistance to use these, let us know. Our team is also equipped to use other tools after clearing them with our IT department for security. Although we will miss seeing you in person, we believe you will find that the quality of our service is not affected by our ability to deliver services remotely.

We are disappointed that the Treasury Department and the IRS have yet to provide taxpayers and tax preparers with filing and payment relief, given Monday’s tax return deadline for many businesses. However, for most of our business clients we proactively manage tax compliance and payment responsibilities, so March 15 and April 15 are not as critical as they otherwise might be. Again, this is something we have been doing for over a decade and with most clients on this program, the disruption caused by this health crisis will have minimal impact on our normal operations. If we have a signed engagement letter on file for your business return and it has not already been filed, it has been extended and we will continue as normal towards completion. Towards the end of March we prepare extensions for all of the returns due April 15th. Regardless of what the IRS does, our normal processes have already mitigated to a large extent any failure by IRS to provide relief. We anticipate the extended deadlines for returns (September 15 and October 15) will not be moved and thus we continue working diligently towards completion of all of the returns on a first in first out basis and completing as many of them as quickly as we can.

As a firm, we will remain vigilant—to do everything we can to help keep our employees and clients healthy and safe; and to meet our clients’ evolving needs now and in the future. We value our relationship with you, and we’re here for you. We appreciate your loyalty and take our responsibility to you all seriously. Contact your Mangold Anker Phillips team member with any questions or needs anytime.

Sincerely,

Thomas Mangold, CPA/ABV/CITP/CGMA, President
Mangold Anker Phillips, PLLC
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