Will the Tax Deadline be Extended Again?
Amid this Coronavirus pandemic, there are a lot of news outlets that are now suggesting there is a significant possibility when it comes to the tax deadline changing. However, that is quite untrue and as of right now nothing seems to have changed. It can be safely confirmed that the 2019 season of the tax filing deadline still remains the same – July 15, 2020.
On March 20, 2020, the Internal Revenue Service officially confirmed and issued guidance making it absolutely clear that the due date for filing tax returns and making the tax payments has been extended from April 15 to July 15.
Now, if you are someone who feels that some more time is needed to file, then you can quite easily opt for filing for an extension. That being said, it is important to note that in 2020, an extension will be extending the time to file by a whopping six months; from the original due date which was April 15 to October 15, 2020.
Rumors about the deadline
Also, remember that the rumors about pushing the filing deadline into fall are not entirely false. There have been some whispers going around that are subjected but are yet to materialize. So far, these whispers remain as mere speculations only, and there is no proposal on the books that is official. There’s not even a potential concrete date that is being bandied about. According to the recent rumors, it is being speculated that the dates could be moved anywhere from September 15, 2020, to December 15, 2020.
Most tax professionals, are of the consensus that there will be some political pressure to push the date forward. But that could create a lot of problems. Extending the tax filing and payment time assumes that taxpayers will be having those funds to pay later. However, in a tough economy like this, that might not be true at all. Taxpayers, by planning to pay later, may very well just be kicking the can down the road while at the same time other payments may become due, like those for this particular year, 2020.
Statistics
Another very important thing to note here is that the statistics also don’t happen to support the need for an extension of the deadline just yet. The Internal Revenue Service, last year, happened to receive and process returns over 156 million returns. Among these, about 137 million returns were received well before the deadline for filing. The remainder, which was about 10%, were the only ones who filed with an extension.
This year, despite the extraordinarily difficult circumstances which surround this tax season; the IRS has already received returns over 125 million. Therefore, this shows that it is likely that a few million more taxpayers can certainly file before the first proposed extended date of July 15, 2020.
.
