On the heels of the announcement earlier this week by the Treasury Department (the “Treasury”) and the Internal Revenue Service (the “IRS”) that delayed the Federal tax payment deadline from April 15, 2020, to July 15, 2020, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin has signaled on Twitter that the corresponding filing deadlines will also be automatically extended to July 15, 2020, which was also confirmed in an IRS tweet.
We expect that formal guidance from the Treasury and the IRS will be published soon, which will be posted on their website. Such guidance likely will follow the provisions that were announced for the payment deadline relief and also may overlap with additional relief currently under consideration by Congress. We anticipate that it will include the following:
- Affected Taxpayers. Secretary Mnuchin’s announcement refers to “taxpayers and businesses” in reference to the April 15, 2020 filing deadline. Thus, the relief will be limited to individual taxpayers and corporate taxpayers (“C corporations”) with a filing deadline of April 15, 2020. We anticipate that the relief will not extend to taxpayers with filing deadlines that are not on April 15, 2020. For example, partnerships (Form 1065) and tax-exempt organizations (Form 990, 990-PF and/or 990-T) would not receive automatic relief (subject, of course, to formal written guidance from the IRS).
- Filing Extensions Available. This is only a three-month automatic extension. For those who can’t file by the new July 15, 2020 filing deadline, please keep in mind that additional extension(s) could be requested from the IRS by filing the appropriate form.
- States Have Separate Filing and Payment Deadlines. The new guidance from the Treasury and the IRS does not apply to filing or payment requirements under state laws, but several states have already provided similar relief. For more information on your particular state, the American Institute of CPAs has compiled and is updating a list of state actions here.
Hall Render will continue to monitor and provide you with information as it becomes available. Please refer to Hall Render’s COVID-19 Resource Center and hotline at (317) 429-3900 for any questions, as well as up-to-date information regarding the virus.
If you have any questions on the issues discussed in or related to this post, please contact:
- Calvin Chambers at (317) 977-1459 or cchambers@wp.hallrender.com;
- Jeff Peek at (317) 977-1405 or jpeek@wp.hallrender.com;
- Jeff Carmichael at (317) 977-1293 or jcarmichael@wp.hallrender.com; or
- Your regular Hall Render attorney.
For more information on Hall Render’s Tax services, click here.
