The Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) are offering up some welcome relief for taxpayers this tax season in response to the coronavirus pandemic. The deadlines for filing 2019 tax returns and for making 2019 income tax payments have officially been pushed back to July 15th. Meaning, individuals and businesses will have an extra 90 days to file their tax returns and pay the IRS if they owe additional income tax for 2019 (however, limitations do apply and are described in detail below). Now that there is no need to file for an extension by April 15th, as long as your tax return is filed by July 15th, you will avoid late-filing penalties. During a coronavirus briefing earlier in the week, Steven Mnuchin, United States Secretary of the Treasury, stated simply, “All you have to do is file your taxes; you’ll automatically not get charged interest in penalties.” Please note, the new July 15th deadline applies to federal tax income payments only. Individual states set their own deadlines. You can check your specific state’s deadlines here.
As part of the government’s plan to counter the economic fallout from coronavirus, individual and small business filers can defer payments of up to $1 million of their 2019 taxes due and corporations can defer up to $10 million of their 2019 taxes due. In addition, 2020 Q1 estimated tax payments that are normally due from businesses on April 15th have also been deferred to July 15th.
However, what if one is unable to file their taxes by the April 15th deadline? Like always, taxpayers can still request a six-month extension to file returns, giving taxpayers until October 15th to do so. The form to request a six-month filing extension can be found here.
For further information on the various coronavirus tax relief efforts being conducted by the IRS, please visit https://www.irs.gov/
As always, if you would like to discuss the information we’ve provided in further detail, please feel free to reach out to us at Maddox Thomson & Associates. We are happy to provide tax guidance or support, especially during these particularly trying times.
