Tax Season Update Regarding COVID-19

The Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) are providing special payment relief to individuals and businesses in response to the COVID-19 Outbreak.

Highlights

Filing Deadline
The filing deadline for tax returns remains April 15, 2020. The IRS urges taxpayers who are owed a refund to file as quickly as possible. For those who can’t file by the April 15, 2020 deadline, the IRS reminds individual taxpayers that everyone is eligible to request a six-month extension to file their return.

Payment Relief – Individuals
Income tax payment deadlines for individual returns, with a due date of April 15, 2020, are being automatically extended until July 15, 2020, for up to $1 million of their 2019 tax due. This payment relief applies to individuals, trusts and estates. IRS will automatically provide this relief to taxpayers. Taxpayers do not need to file any additional forms or call the IRS to qualify for this relief.

Payment Relief – Corporations
For C Corporations, income tax payment deadlines are being automatically extended until July 15, 2020, for up to $10 million of their 2019 tax due.

Estimated Tax Payments
This relief also includes estimated tax payments for the tax year 2020 that are due on April 15, 2020.

Penalties and Interest
Penalties and interest will begin to accrue on any remaining unpaid balances as of July 16, 2020. If a tax return or extension is filed by April 15, 2020, the taxpayer will automatically avoid interest and penalties on the taxes paid by July 15. 

States
This relief only applies to federal income tax (including tax on self-employment income) payments otherwise due April 15, 2020, not state tax payments or deposits or payments of any other type of federal tax. State filing and payment deadlines vary and are not always the same as the federal filing deadline. We expect state tax agencies to announce any available tax relief for affected taxpayers in the coming days; some have already published these notices on their websites.