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News News Feature

Taxman 2020

2020 has been an amazing year so far. The stock market had a record sell-off in the first quarter and a solid recovery in the second. COVID-19 shut down the world for a couple of months, but we started to reopen and now some areas are slowing down again. All of this in only six months.

If you haven’t had enough fun with that, let’s take the time to think about taxes in 2020. As a result of COVID, legislation was passed earlier this year that included three changes that may apply to you.

Charitable Contributions:

Charities are feeling the pinch of reduced contributions and increased service needs, just like the rest of us. Congress added two rules to help encourage charitable gifts in 2020. Normally, if you take the standard deduction on your income tax return, you cannot deduct charitable contributions. However, this year, donors who do not itemize may deduct up to $300 of charitable contributions. Additionally, larger donors are generally limited to deducting 60 percent of their Adjusted Gross Income (AGI) for cash gifts. But in 2020, Congress has increased this to 100 percent of AGI for cash gifts to operating charities. If you make sizable charitable contributions, work with your favorite charities and advisors to determine if there is an opportunity to make an additional impact this year.

IRA Distributions:

IRAs are great places to accumulate assets, but eventually the IRS decides they want their tax money. To make this happen, you must begin taking Required Minimum Distributions from your own IRA at age 72 or earlier for an inherited IRA. Because of the sell-off in the stock market early this year, Congress approved a one-year exemption from Required Minimum Distributions. If you would normally be subject to an RMD but do not need the cash this year, consider postponing the distribution and tax payment until next year. Depending on your 2020 tax bracket, it may be a good year to make a Roth conversion with a portion of your IRA. Pay some tax this year and get tax-free growth in future years.

People under age 59½ who take distributions from IRAs and 401ks are normally subject to a 10 percent penalty for early distribution. These accounts are designed to be a long-term savings program, but sometimes they are the only source of funds. For COVID-related distributions in 2020, you can pay the tax with your 2020 tax return or extend the payment over a three-year period. If you elect the three-year payment, you are still subject to paying the taxes during this period, but you have the option to claim a refund to get the funds back and avoid the tax (essentially a self-funded loan). To avoid the 10 percent early distribution penalty and qualify for the repayment period, the withdrawals must be under $100,000 and you have to meet one of the following criteria:

You, your spouse, or dependent are diagnosed with COVID.

You experience adverse financial consequences as a result of being quarantined, furloughed, laid off, or having reduced work hours, or the closure or reduction of hours for a business you own.

Unemployment Benefits:

The additional $600 per week unemployment benefits paid by the federal government is taxable income; don’t be surprised.

The tax changes offer a little bit for everyone: an additional charitable deduction for those who are inclined, postponed RMD for taxpayers who don’t need the cash, and a lower tax rate for those who do have to tap into retirement savings.

Take the time to plan ahead and get the best tax answer out of 2020.

Perry Green, CPA/PFS, CFP, CFA is chief financial officer and senior wealth strategist for Waddell & Associates.

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Food & Wine Food & Drink

Wok’n in Memphis Launches Online Specialty Store

Spencer Coplan began his Wok’n in Memphis restaurant as a pop-up in 2017. For the past two years, he’s been serving his nontraditional take on Chinese food at Puck Food Hall.

Well, Coplan started something new: Wok’n in Pickle Co.

“It’s our side hustle project from Wok’n in Memphis,” Coplan says. “We open to the public Thursday, July 25th. It is an online grocery store that sells specialty provisions and products we make in-house using local ingredients.”

He’s making shiso (a plant that’s in the basil family) vinegar. It has a “floral and earthy” flavor that is perfect for salads. And, Coplan says, “A couple of dashes go well in a cocktail.”

They bought a whiskey barrel to make aged soy sauce. “It sits in the whiskey barrel for three months, and then it gets chocolatey and oak notes. And we add umami to the soy sauce. It’s a great marinade for meats or [to put] a dash of it in a rice bowl or on noodles.”

He’s also making “kimchi pickles of all varieties” and flavored oils.

Kimchi is “a Korean fermented pickle condiment. We put it in fried rice. We stuff it in dumplings. The juice is really nice and pungent. And it goes well in my Bloody Mary mix.”

The oils include garlic chili oil and coriander oil. They also make a spicy chili condiment, which is made of fried garlic and shallots, chili flakes, and sesame seeds. “That goes in all of our dumplings.”

Some of these are Coplan’s products that have been around for a while. “We’ve been making them for a long time just for us. Why not bottle and sell them?”

They’re using “all Rolling Along Farms produce out of Memphis. We’ve got cucumbers, carrots, banana peppers, green beans, peas. And then we’re making cabbage kimchi and carrot kimchi.”

Coplan created all the recipes from “trial and error. Lots of error.”

They began with the kimchi. “We’ve always done kimchi. We started selling that probably around February in 16-ounce deli cups. It kind of took off. People really enjoyed it. I thought, ‘Why not bottle and sell other items?'”

The items will be available at the restaurant and online at wokn-in-memphis.square.site.

Wok’n in Pickle Co. came into being because of the pandemic, Coplan says. “A lot of the stuff came from the fact we were really slow. I didn’t know what people were going to do. We had a lot of leftover product, and we didn’t want it to go bad. So we started preserving it in different capacities.”

Everything is made at Puck Food Hall. “We’ve got some new peach hot sauce coming out now. And we’re thinking down the road we’d like to package and sell our dumplings in the frozen variety. So you can take them home and steam them, fry them, boil them. Any way you please.”

They currently are offering about 15 products, Coplan says. “And we plan on growing from there. Add dumplings; maybe we’ll jar up some sauces we make. Things like that.”

Wok’n in Pickle Co. is “my idea of how to provide a few things for people Downtown who want to buy some specialty groceries.”

During the quarantine, Coplan says there were “a lot of late nights of bottling hot sauce and chili oil and jarring things.”

Wok’n in Memphis has been open for takeout and delivery, but now customers can eat inside Puck Food Hall. “During those times, we started focusing on other outlets of income so we could be open doing takeout and delivery or half capacity. I thought another way of making an income is this side hustle.”

His restaurant is open Thursday through Sunday.

“The General Tso’s Chicken is still our fan favorite,” Coplan says. “It’s just the tangy sauce tossed with crispy chicken served over rice. It’s our bread and butter.”

Wok’n in Memphis is in Puck Food Hall at 409 S. Main; (901) 949-4887, wokninmemphis.com.

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Food & Drink Hungry Memphis

STIX Restaurant Opens Downtown Location

Photo courtesy STIX Restaurant

The entrance to STIX Restaurant on Second St.

To find some of the newest pan-asian food Downtown, just follow the dragon. STIX Restaurant opened the doors of its second Memphis location earlier today at the former home of Dan McGuinness Irish Pub.

Patrons can enter the front doors on N. 2nd Street, grab a menu, and follow the long dragon mural down the hallway to the register. Meanwhile, ServiceMaster employees can enter STIX through a side door without leaving the office.

The interior underwent a complete redesign, with owner Wayne Yeh overseeing the installation of lounge seating, traditional tables, and a floor-to-ceiling moss wall emblazoned with the STIX logo.

“Our Downtown location is situated in a beautiful, newly renovated space that I know locals and tourists alike are going to enjoy visiting,” says Yeh. “Whether you’re looking for a unique meal like a sushi burrito or you want to take a more traditional route and go with a cup of Egg Drop Soup with a sushi roll, we have something delicious to offer.”

Unlike the Collierville location, the 2,600-square-foot space offers counter service only. The menu contains traditional items like hibachi, sushi, and crispy spring rolls, but Yeh also plans for STIX to offer daily specials like steamed Asian buns, or Memphis-centric sushi burritos (take your pick between the Bluff City Burrito or Riverside Roll). The restaurant also serves select local and domestic beer. For now, STIX will only serve a limited menu for takeout. Orders can be placed ahead of time online, or at a digital kiosk inside the restaurant.

STIX Restaurant

150 Peabody Pl.

12-8p.m., Monday-Saturday.

www.stixonline.com

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Music Music Blog

Listen Up: Jacob Davis on Co-Writing a Protest Song, ‘Rise Up’

Jacob Davis in a protest march in Memphis.



Jacob Davis believes in rising up. 

The Memphis singer-songwriter, who rose up from facing demons in his own life, came to the forefront and participated in recent protest marches to help others rise up. 

Davis, 25, also co-wrote “Rise Up,” which he describes as “sort of an honest letter penned to music to our nation in dealing with all the racial tension that’s going on. I got together with my buddy, Kyle Wright, and we’ve been writing together for the last year or so. The message is to break free from constraints. They are found in systematic racism. And to put policy in place that will bring more freedom and equality to the African-American community.”

He met with some of his friends who are Black and asked them what they thought about the song. “They really liked the song. I wanted to fully understand to the best of my ability what their culture goes through. It was very eye-opening and sobering.”

He and Wright are donating profits from the song to Campaign Zero, which is “an anti police brutality nonprofit.”

And, Davis says, “All of this will go to that organization for what it stands for.”

The song wasn’t written in his usual style, he says. “It’s a bit out of my comfort zone because it’s a funk tune. Man, I like funk music and I never released something with a funk feel and I thought it was time to do something. When I got with Kyle I gave him three different options. Three songs fully written. They had the chords and some of the riffs.”

Wright really enjoyed the funk version. “So, we stuck with the funk.”

Kyle Wright

Davis sang an 1963 song, popularly known as “Peace on Earth,” as he played his guitar and participated in four protest marches. “It was a united group. It was very peaceful and people were really locking arms. But everyone was very angry.”

He found the police supportive at the marches he took part in. “A few police officers were marching with us, actually.”

Born in Columbia, South Carolina, Davis grew up in a musical family. His parents and sisters all sang. “My dad was a recording guitarist and engineer. And I was in the studio with him. When I was growing up my dad worked at a studio called The Jam Room Studio in Columbia. That was his main job. And I’d be with him ‘cause in the early days we couldn’t really afford a babysitter.”

His mother was a nurse, so Davis often would be at the studio late night. Even though he was four or five, he still remembers those days. “My dad was the mix engineer and usually got brought in to record punk and rap bands. South Carolina was a very big alternative scene at the time. He was the guy.”

Davis still remembers some of the groups. “There was a band called Figure 4. Kind of a Rage Against the Machine group. They all wore wrestling masks.”

But Davis fell in love with blues and blues rock. He could sing the recording of  “When Love Comes to Town” by U2 and B. B. King when he was five or six years old.

Growing up, Davis and his family listened to a lot of “Christian underground bands.” Growing up in an unorthodox Christian family, he says, “We didn’t approach the Bible as a rule book. We approached it as a love letter from God to man. So, it’s all about this intimate relationship with Jesus. And everything we did was an offshoot of that.”

Davis doesn’t remember the name of the first song he wrote, but, he says, “It was something about being near to God’s heart.”

His life began spiraling downward after he and his family moved. “My parents are missionaries. So, we moved to Germany when I was 10.  And during that time I was severely bullied. I went through a lot of depression. I had night terrors until I was 18 years old. And it’s really easy to get a hold of alcohol when you’re in Germany. I started to have kind of a bit of a problem. If you can imagine a middle school kid drinking when they shouldn’t.”

He was bullied when he was 13 and going to a “missionary kid high school,” Davis says. “A lot of verbal stuff. If I was going to the gym they’d throw my clothes in the shower and they’d be wet. They’d try to hit and kick me. I was a very small kid. I ended up being the target.”

And, he says, “I was very introverted. I didn’t like people.”

Then, Davis says, “I had a moment where all of it kind of came to a head and I tried to kill myself.”

He was prepared. “I had a knife. I was just going to take myself out through the chest.”

But, he says, “God showed up. I kid you not. And he put this invisible shield in front of my whole body. I couldn’t hurt myself or stab myself or anything.”

And, Davis says, “I couldn’t do it no matter how many times I tried. I did. And it didn’t work.”

He previously experienced dark times during his life. “I already was having these very dark demonic experiences and I didn’t have somebody to really talk those out with. Not just that, I saw demons as a kid and they’d come terrorize me in my sleep. So, when I got to this suicidal moment, I heard the Lord speak for the first time. And he said, ‘Have you forgotten me?’ And he told me to drop the knife and everything would be OK.’

“So, I did. And fell asleep. Cried myself to sleep. That’s a lot for a 13 year old. It was kind of crazy.”

The next day, Davis looked at some statistics. “Forty people die from suicide every minute. So, I’m sitting there and the first thought that comes into my head is, ‘The God of the universe just stopped me from taking myself out. What?’ So, I thought, ‘My life must matter to him and I must have something important I need to get done.’”

His life changed dramatically. “I became an extrovert all of a sudden. A massive personality change. I started thinking more positively. I was able to get some of my heavier emotions out in songs. My relationship with my parents deepened. I was able to talk to them about some things. We grew closer as a family. It was crazy.”

School life changed, too. “I was still kind of the weird kid, but I started making more friends. And some people started apologizing to me. And that was the beginning of healing in my life.”

When he was 19, Davis majored in psychology at Columbia International University. But he realized after a year that he “didn’t have what it took to be a counselor.”

And, he says, “One of the things that the Lord told me at 13 was that I would be writing songs for young people. And that would be my job and my ministry career. And I had not followed that track.”

Davis had a lot of fear about making music a career. “Several people in my life that meant really well were discouraging me from doing music.”

But with the help of God, he took the plunge and delved into music, he says. “I think what I’m doing now is a miracle. I think any musician who is pursuing it full time is a miracle.”

Davis eventually “hit the ground running. I put together an indie Americana record. I wrote a bunch of songs. I ended up putting a band together and we became one big family. Jacob Davis and the Nightingales.”

God also told him to go back to school, Davis says. He chose Visible Music College in  Memphis because it offered a degree in songwriting. “Visible is a beautiful, unique hub, I would say. Even though it’s a modern Christian music college, we opened it up for all denominations. So, you have all these different people that were there. And the music was very diverse.”

Davis graduated from Visible two months ago. “There’s a general thing I took and a specific thing I took. Generally, I learned what it means for a songwriter to love God and love people as well. And to steward our words well. I think music is supposed to be selfless. I think it’s supposed to be an offering of kindness and unity and peace and restitution. And up to that point, songwriting had been cathartic to me. So, I learned how to get out of myself and look at the world and write about that world in a way that’s uplifting.”

Now an instructor at School of Rock, Davis currently is working on various projects.

“Ayr” is his three piece Irish group. “I’ve got a lot of Irish and Scottish in my heritage.”

“Monsters Beware” is another band Davis is working on. It’s “about all of the monsters we deal with internally. And, I would say, demons that we face externally and the strongholds within our minds. Things that are mentally incorrect that hinder us from being able to move forward in life.”

To hear “Rise Up,” click here:

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News News Blog

Health Department Closes Bars, Restaurants to Close by 10 p.m.

Bars will close at midnight Wednesday and restaurants will now close at 10 p.m. on new restrictions from public health officials to curb the rising cases of COVID-19 in Shelby County.

The new restrictions were announced during the Memphis and Shelby County COVID-19 Joint Task Force news briefing Tuesday. A new health directive with more detailed information on the new restrictions will be published later today.

Shelby County Health Department director Dr. Alisa Haushalter said the decision to make the new restrictions came as bars and restaurants across the U.S. are known to have higher levels of virus transmission. Haushalter said wearing a mask is difficult when drinking at a bar.

She said masking mandates here have not been enough to get enough people to actually wearing them. So, the second step to curb the virus is to begin restrictions in places where transmissions are likely to occur.

Here’s the directive:  [pdf-1]

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News News Blog

Black Leaders Express Concern on Police Referendum Ahead of Council Vote


The Memphis City Council will reconsider a referendum on police and fire residency requirements set to be on the November ballot at its meeting Tuesday.

The council voted in February not to rescind an ordinance passed by the previous council to allow voters to decide if public safety officials should live within 50 miles of the city. Now, the council will return to that ordinance, deciding whether or not to keep it on the November ballot.

Ahead of the council’s vote, a coalition of Black clergy members gathered virtually to express concerns about the referendum and relaxing the residency requirements for police officers.

Rev. Earle Fisher of Abyssinian Missionary Baptist Church said the city’s premise behind relaxing residency requirements is that “violent crime is best managed by an increase in police officers, thus we must relax requirements because we can’t recruit enough personnel.”

But, Fisher says the group disagrees with that premise: “We do not need more officers to solve the problem. It’s a matter of quality, not quantity.”

“We decrease crime by decreasing poverty, by investing more in public education than we invest in incarceration, by making it easier to get a job paying a livable wage than it is to get access to guns and drugs,” Fisher says. “To this end, we implore every city council member to do the right things and vote to remove this referendum.”

The vote signifies “our broader long-term commitment to change,” Fisher said.

[pullquote-1]

Rev. Roz Nichols of Freedom Chapel Christian Church said the group “expects and demands for us to have safety officers that will serve and live as residents in our community. We do believe that residency matters.”

“Substantial transformation,” Nichols said, will come in the form of funding for agencies to “appropriately” respond to mental health crises, at-risk youth, homelessness, and domestic violence.

“These are not new issues, but we are at a critical moment when we are looking for transformational change,” Nichols said. “How can the $9.8 million from the justice department be appropriated to fund those things that help support community safety?”

Nichols said she and the other clergy members “expect the city council to move in the direction of systemic change and not perpetuate the status quo” by removing the referendum from the November ballot.

“More officers, regardless of their residency, will not be the solution to the real crises we face,” she said.

The city council will take the first of three votes on the ordinance to remove the residency requirement question from the November ballot Tuesday (today) during its 3:30 meeting. Tune in here.

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News News Blog

New Virus Cases Rise By 146

COVID-19 Memphis
Infogram

New Virus Cases Rise By 146

Test results reported Monday morning showed 146 new cases of COVID-19 in Shelby County, lower than the 190 new cases reported Monday.

The latest weekly data available shows 10.3 percent of all tests were positive for the week of June 14th. The positivity rate has grown steadily since the 4 percent rate recorded for the week of May 4th, just as the county’s economy began to reopen.

The county’s overall average positive rate for COVID-19 has rose steadily last week to 8.5 percent on all test results. The total number of COVID-19 cases here stands at 12,165. The death toll in Shelby County is 200.

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News News Blog

New WYXR Station to Air From Crosstown

WYXR

New radio station WYXR’s initial staff includes (from left) Shelby McCall, Robby Grant, and Jared Boyd.

WYXR, a new, non-commercial radio station will hit the air (and digital devices) here this fall in a partnership between Crosstown Concourse, The Daily Memphian, and the University of Memphis.

The station’s radio home is at 91.7 FM and its call letters stand for “Your Crosstown Radio.” That’s where the station’s staff will produce and air its daily broadcasts. The station partners came together to reimagine the U of M’s WUMR station back in November.

The station will be led by executive director Robby Grant, who spent 15 years at advertising firm Archer Malmo after first starting his own online marketing company. Grant is also a staple on the Memphis music scene, touring widely and also as a member of Mellotron Variations.

“I’ve been wanting to help make a change with Memphis radio, specifically community radio, for a long time,” Grant said in a statement. “The fact that it has organically become real is exciting.
[pullquote-1] “We are going to amplify voices in Memphis and the Mid-South. By taking a freeform approach, we want to begin finding personalities and DJs who have their own tastes and things they’ve grown up loving and sharing with people.

“A freeform station allows those DJs to turn people onto music, whether it’s the music they’ve loved their whole lives or what they’ve heard this past week.”

Jared “Jay B.” Boyd will serve as WYXR’s program director. Boyd is a DJ, reporter with The Daily Memphian, and host of NPR-syndicated radio program “Beale Street Caravan.”

“Aside from the opportunity to be hands-on in cultivating new and emerging broadcast talent in the Mid-South, I’m most gratified by this radio partnership’s potential to truly reach people in the Mid-South area by virtue of being open and welcoming in nature,” Boyd said in a statement. “When you walk into Crosstown Concourse, it won’t be hidden. The nuts and bolts of the operation will be showcased behind glass right in the lobby of the Central Atrium. By design, this community-minded radio station will not just broadcast to its audience but live and breathe alongside it.”

WYXR

Former WUMR staffer Shelby McCall, who works now with Entercom Memphis, has signed on as WYXR’s operations coordinator. The University of Memphis is also searching for an instructor for student radio. This position will facilitate student involvement with the station and also program and plan a second university-focused internet stream, on which students will broadcast news, sports, and music.

The station’s programming will be made up of volunteer contributions from regular content producers and special guests to achieve a freeform format, providing room for a rotating cast of local personalities and an educational ground for university students.

WYXR

From left: Grant, Boyd, and McCall

The WYXR studio is now being built in the space once held by The OAM network, an independent podcast company. The new space will have a redesigned control room, production room, and live audio connections from Crosstown Theater, the Green Room at Crosstown Arts, and plans to simulcast event’s from the U of M’s new, $40 million Scheidt Family Music Center.

For more information or to volunteer, go to wyxr.org. Initial programming will be posted on the site in the coming weeks.

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News News Blog

Gretchen Wollert McLennon to lead Ballet Memphis

Ballet Memphis has named Gretchen Wollert McLennon as its new president and CEO, replacing Dorothy Gunther Pugh who is retiring.

Ballet Memphis

Gretchen Wollert McLennon

McLennon has long been associated with the company, having served as board chair, chair of the strategic plan, and being an integral part of the recent capital campaign.

She officially begins on August 1st, but has already been working with partners, dancers, and the executive team on the transition.

“I want to leverage Dorothy Gunther Pugh’s legacy to reimagine how Ballet Memphis can become even more valuable well into the 21st century. I’m excited to work with a world class team to explore how a ‘traditional’ art form can further deliver on our commitment to both equity and reflecting our shared community values,”​ she says.

As a child, McLennon was a student in the Ballet Memphis school and was part of the junior company. She was board chair from 2014 to 2017 and worked on the project to construct the company’s facility in Overton Square.

She has more than 15 years in the philanthropic and nonprofit sector, including 10 years at the Hyde Family Foundation as program director.

She has also been major gifts officer for the Metropolitan Inter-Faith Association and a donor relations officer for the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta. She is on the boards of several local nonprofits.

Ballet Memphis has a $4 million operating budget and has performed around the world.

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Food & Drink Hungry Memphis

Zoo Rendezvous Canceled on COVID-19 Concerns

Michael Donahue

Zoo Rendezvous

The Memphis Zoo announced the “difficult” decision to cancel Zoo Rendezvous 2020 Monday morning.

The event is the zoo’s largest, single-night fundraiser and featured restaurants from all over Memphis. This year’s would have been the 37th consecutive Zoo Rendezvous.

The Memphis Zoo

“Several key factors played a major role in our decision to cancel this event including restaurateurs who have been hit hard during the COVID-19 pandemic,” reads a statement from the zoo. “The zoo’s two-month closure occurred during the start of our busy season. Our attendance fluctuates throughout the year, and the loss of our spring season will have substantial financial impacts through the end of the year.

“As always, we would like to thank our longtime local restaurant partners, sponsors, and event attendees for their continued support. We encourage everyone to support the bar and restaurant community during these unprecedented times.

“Looking ahead to Rendezvous 2021, we have already set the date for September 11th. At that time, we will have one of the city’s most elaborate celebrations as Zoo Rendezvous will return in full swing with much fanfare and celebration.”  Michael Donahue

Zoo Rendezvous