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2020 is the 50th anniversary of Earth Day. Each time April 22 comes around, it's a good time to ask, not what your earth can do for you, but ask what you can do for your earth! We should be doing is thanking the planet that allows us to live on it all year-round, but at least we dedicate one day each year for celebration!

There are many ways to celebrate Earth Day such as, make a cake for the earth, clean up the earth by going to a local beach, park, or just a...

Have you been checking your banking app the last few days to see when, or if, the promised stimulus money would show up? Yeah, me too!

I saw something pretty funny in the world of memes yesterday that gave me a much-needed laugh. I will not be able to quote this correctly, but the gist of it was, "The world really is upside down right now. It is April 15th, and the government gave ME money!"  It's funny because it is true. The government stimulus showed up in many American's bank accounts yesterday, and...

Medcom Benefit Solutions recently announced a significant and valuable expansion of its Consumer Driven Health Plan division with the introduction of a Disaster Relief Program. The program, Medcom Cares, assists employers looking for time-sensitive and creative financial ways for helping their employees dealing with furloughs, reduced hours, and layoffs due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Medcom Cares is based on IRS Section 139: Disaster Relief Payments. Section 139 states that employers are allowed to provide "Qualified Disaster Relief Payments" to employees, tax-free, who are affected by a federally declared disaster. A qualified disaster relief payment means any amount paid...

Medcom is getting a lot of questions regarding Flexible Spending Accounts, and other tax-advantaged benefit plans, and mid-year changes. We are here to provide additional clarification in a time when that seems hard to find. We are certainly in unusual territory, and the situation and changes with the IRS are fluid. 

To date, we still have not seen that the IRS has allowed for any new mid-year election changes to FSA's in light of the coronavirus or any changes to grace periods or rollovers. Under the existing rules, the Plan Administrator generally has the right...