Last week, many AT&T customers had a frustrating day when the company’s mobile service went down for almost 12 hours. And it is a testament to the ubiquity of our need for connection when just hearing this story gives all of us a little internal cringe. AT&T itself also understands how important this is as it did not take the company long to announce that it would issue a credit to those potentially impacted – to the amount of $5.

Wait, that’s it?

On first read, these things did not seem equal to me. From a business perspective, not having service for that amount of time could really slow things down. From a personal perspective, I imagine there were some kids trying to get picked up by their parents who couldn’t get through to them. And that’s just to start, it is easy to spin out from there and imagine many inconveniences this could cause. And $5 for that just feels … cheap.

That amount, however, was touted by AT&T as the average cost of a full day of service. And yes, that math checks out. So instead getting stuck in feeling like it’s not enough of a recompense, maybe instead it just shows that with how much we rely on our phones that the cost of service is a bargain.

This then sent my mind down that business perspective lane again – is it possible that a company can get too good at providing a service? I mean, we wake up every day and our phones work, connecting us to the world in a myriad of ways, and even though all of this is still relatively new we just take it for granted. And we use it that much and it only costs $5 a day. Well, to utilize the most overused comparison there is – that’s only like a cup of coffee!

On the one hand, this sounds great for phone companies. They send us a bill every month that we can’t imagine not paying. The biggest danger there is from customers moving to other companies but not actually discontinuing mobile service overall. On the other hand, when a rare problem comes and a company goes to correct it, even making a solid good faith gesture (like AT&T did) may feel too little, too late. So, do you have to overcompensate? If you don’t, will it send some people to a competitor?

I do not have any answers to these questions, but just thought they were interesting to ponder as this is a business situation we do not encounter often.

Warmly,

Josh Bousquet
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It feels a little silly to return in a blog post about something that quite likely will not come to pass, but it feels needed. I am referring to the Tax Relief for American Families and Workers At that passed the House of Representatives on January 31 but is currently stalled in the Senate.

The bill is not being ignored, though. Last week, IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel was part of a hearing when he was asked about the potential for the bill’s passage, and his answers echo much of what I wrote on this a couple of weeks ago. So, I figured it was worth addressing some highlights.

First, Werfel estimated that it would take the IRS six to 12 weeks to implement the changes if the bill was passed. Even if this were passed immediately, that short window already pushes things into April. So, you would have to be betting on both the Senate (which is not) and the IRS (which traditionally doesn’t) working very quickly to make it worth holding off on filing your taxes because of this. 

Second, Werfel stated that only 10% of households would see adjustments to their tax returns due to changes in the Child Tax Credit. This means that if you are unsure if this would even affect you at all, it likely won’t. Furthermore, if you file early, it is not as if you will miss out on getting the extra credit.  It will still be applied to your existing return.

The advice after this is still to not wait on moving forward with your taxes. So many people start to think about tax season when the calendar turns to the new year and at that point April 15 sounds far away. On January 1, though, you are still about a month away from receiving all the forms you will need for even most basic returns. And now we are rapidly approaching the end of February, so we are only looking about having seven weeks to go before the deadline. This time goes by fast and it is easy to hear about possibilities about why you may want to wait, but there is rarely anything concrete to be gained by doing so.

And many times, even those potential reasons fade away. So keep on top of things while you still have the chance to be proactive and not feel the weight of a tough deadline push.

Warmly,

Josh Bousquet
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Recently, I saw a headline about ransomware attacks and thought that I had not heard about them in a while. Then I got into the article, discovered that 2023 had the highest amount of ransomware payments ever (over $1 billion) and then started to wonder why I hadn’t heard about them in a while. And the only answer I can come up with is that it has become so commonplace that it isn’t newsworthy anymore for it no longer captures eyes and attention.

From there, it only stands to reason that online security as a whole is probably suffering the same point. At this point, security software is probably ubiquitous enough that everyone has installed something at some time, but if news of scammers and criminals barely register anymore, are we giving it enough thought? Do we even know things such as:

• Is your security subscription still active?
• Is your security subscription updated to the latest version?
• Have you installed security software on all new devices?

Another interesting point is that ransomware saw a big dip in 2022, with the total amount received by attackers dropping to $567 million after being at $983 million in 2021. The jump last year, though, says that drop looks to be more an aberration than a trend. And really, even if only half a billion dollars is out there to be had, that’s enough for bad actors to keep working on getting it. We can see some of the same type of conversations surrounding gift card scams now, they’re everywhere, people are growing ever more aware of them, but they’re not stopping.

So let this just be a warning to keep on top of your security and don’t let it just fade to the back of your mind. It does not need to be front of the mind all the time, but it cannot be forgotten. Even as scammers are becoming ever more ubiquitous, our security systems need to match that.

Warmly,

Josh Bousquet
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No matter how big tax filing time really is for us here, we understand that it’s not everyone’s favorite. And it becomes a little less fun for everyone (ourselves included) when there is news that says the season could still be thrown for a loop.

That occurred last week when the House of Representatives passed a tax bill with various credits (the biggest one probably being beefing up the Child Tax Credit) that would be in effect for tax years 2023 through 2025. So yes, that’s tax year 2023, the one that we are currently in the midst of filing season for. There are also some business tax benefits involved, but exactly what is in the bill is not what I want to discuss here.

First, although this bill passed with bipartisan support in the House, it is already running into significant pushback in the Senate. So the best-case scenario here is that even if it is eventually signed into law, it is not going to happen that quickly. There is no reason then to push off your tax-filing plans.  This would only add deadline weight for something that could possibly not even come to pass.

Second, if you file early, it is not as if you are going to miss out on any new credits. When legislation has been passed on this sort of timeline in the past, it is applied retroactively, so you will still be able to receive the full value.

And finally, what is in this bill are things that can only possibly benefit taxpayers. Nothing is set up so that you would pay now and then still just owe more taxes in the future. So for planning purposes, whatever you do now would be a worst-case scenario. And those are always better to plan for than hoping for some eventual relief.

So overall, we are now in February, the filing season’s full picture may not yet be completely in focus, but the best plan now is still to move forward with filing as fast as possible. For after all, tax filing time is big for us here, it only gets bigger as we go along, so the sooner we can act together, the sooner we can get things wrapped up.

Even if there are later adjustments.

Warmly,

Josh Bousquet
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