- The IRS has decided to extend the tax filing deadline for residents of one state until the summer.
- Because of the devastating winter weather that pounded Texas recently and led to a disaster declaration from FEMA, Texans now have until this summer to file their 2020 taxes.
- The new tax filing deadline for Texas is June 15.
The IRS decided to give residents of Texas some welcome news in recent days, as the state continues to recover from the devastating winter weather that stretched the power grid there to the breaking point and resulted in several deaths.
The agency decided to extend the normal tax filing deadline of April 15 until this summer for Texas filers, to give residents more time to get their 2020 taxes squared away. They’ll now have until June 15, 2021, to file individual and business tax returns, as well as to make tax payments. Moreover, this includes the entirety of the state of Texas, not just a certain part or parts, following the recent disaster declaration from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
“The tax relief postpones various tax filing and payment deadlines that occurred starting on February 11,” the tax agency announced. “As a result, affected individuals and businesses will have until June 15, 2021, to file returns and pay any taxes that were originally due during this period. This includes 2020 individual and business returns normally due on April 15, as well as various 2020 business returns due on March 15.”
Among other things, this also means that taxpayers affected by this news will have until June 15 to make 2020 IRA contributions.
Also worth noting: The IRS says it automatically provides filing and penalty relief to any taxpayer with an IRS address of record located in the disaster area, which means that taxpayers don’t need to contact the agency or take any action themselves to get this relief. Additionally, the IRS disaster relief page has details on other returns, payments, and tax-related actions qualifying for the extra time that’s been announced.
To get an idea of how bad the situation in Texas got as a result of the winter weather, as of Wednesday afternoon (according to poweroutage.us) more than 14,400 people still had no power across the state — where, remember, the weather has been brutally cold in recent days. And as we noted in a previous post, around 8.8 million people — which amounts to almost a third of the state’s total population — were still facing water disruptions as of Sunday evening, according to Gary Rasp, media specialist for the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. The horror stories also included numerous instances of water mains and pipes bursting, flooding peoples’ homes and sending them to find shelter in hotels.
