IRS Extends Federal Income Tax Deadline

The Internal Revenue Service plans to delay this years tax filing deadline by about a month. The IRS is moving it from April 15th to May 17th. They put out an official statement yesterday confirming the date change. An official said the decision was made in order to ‘allow filers more time to navigate tax situations complicated by the coronavirus pandemic’. The change applies to federal income taxes only. State taxes are still due on the original tax date. Last year, the IRS moved the deadline to July 15th. As of March 5th, the IRS had yet to process 6.7 million 2020 returns that were filed beginning February 12th but it has processed about 49 million so far. In addition to the tax returns, the IRS is also in the process of sending out the third round of stimulus checks to about 150 million people. As of yesterday, 90 million of those had been sent. The IRS has yet to come up with a way to provide guidance to jobless individuals who’ve already filed their returns. If they can’t come up with an automatic way to adjust returns reporting unemployment income, filers may have to send in amended returns.