As deadly wildfires continue to ravage parts of California, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has announced that victims of those fires now have until January 31, 2018, to file certain individual and business tax returns and make certain tax payments.
Here’s what the relief entails: tax filing and payment deadlines which began starting on October 8, 2017, will be pushed off until January 31, 2018. That means that returns and payments that were originally due during this period, including the January 16, 2018, deadline for making quarterly estimated tax payments, will now be January 31, 2018.
The relief includes tax-exempt organizations on extension through November 15, 2017, and individual taxpayers on extension through Monday, October 16, 2017. Remember, however, that the extensions were an extension of the time to file, not the time to pay, so any payments for 2016 tax returns are still keyed to the April 18, 2017, due date.
Currently, relief applies to those taxpayers in seven California counties: Butte, Lake, Mendocino, Napa, Nevada, Sonoma, and Yuba. Individuals and businesses in those counties, as well as firefighters and relief workers who live elsewhere, qualify for the extension. (If additional counties are added, I’ll update as information is made available.)
Relief also includes a waiver of late-deposit penalties for federal payroll and excise tax deposits normally due during the first 15 days of the disaster period.
The IRS automatically provides filing and penalty relief to any taxpayer with an IRS address of record located in the disaster area. That means that taxpayers do not need to contact the IRS to get this relief. However, if you receive a late filing or late payment penalty notice from the IRS and were entitled to relief, you should call the number on the notice to have the penalty abated.
The IRS will work with any taxpayer who lives outside the disaster area but whose records are located in the affected area. Taxpayers qualifying for relief who live outside the disaster area need to contact the IRS at 1.866.562.5227. This includes firefighters and workers assisting with the relief activities who are affiliated with a recognized government or charitable organization.
Individuals and businesses who suffered uninsured or unreimbursed disaster-related losses can choose to claim them on either the return for the year the loss occurred – in this instance, the 2017 return normally filed next year – or the return for the prior year (2016). You can find more on casualty losses here.
For more information for taxpayers affected by recent disasters, check out the disaster relief page on IRS.gov. For information on disaster recovery, visit disasterassistance.gov.
