Treasury and IRS to delay tax season deadline by 90 days | Hacker News Reader

Treasury and IRS to delay tax season deadline by 90 days

cnbc.com

106 pointstoomuchtodo31 comments

Take note that your state of residence may or may not have done the same.

Tangential at best, but I’m very curious what will happen with the U.S. census. I can’t imagine the completion rate will be particularly high, and will census workers still be going door to door?

Presidential election year, census year, and of course complete economic shutdown makes this fascinating, setting aside the massive human tragedy.

The Census is sending multiple pieces of mail with information and a key to complete the census online; only after multiple mailings with no response will a census taker be sent to someone's door.

I did the online version and it was exceedingly easy.

Same here. It was the shortest Census form I can remember.

When did you get the form? I still haven't received anything, but I thought they were sent out earlier this month.

I got mine yesterday. It was dated March 12th. I got a notice about it dated March 16th. I think they were having some issues mailing them out.

Mine showed up yesterday in Boston

I can't speak to the census on the whole, but my mother in law works for a Census office in Atlanta and they are still required to come into the office. Given that a COVID-19 case was discovered in the other tower of the complex, this has moved from baffling to downright irresponsible. Doesn't exactly give me faith in the process.

I'm not clear on the details, is this a 90 extension on the filing due date, or is the filing due date still 4/15 with a 90 day extension on taxes due?

> “We encourage those Americans who can file their taxes to continue to file their taxes on April 15,” Mnuchin said. “Because for many Americans, you will get tax refunds.”

~~Seems pretty clear to me,~~ ~~the deadline for filing~~ and deadline to pay are both extended by 90 days.

Edit: Sorry, you're right, it's not clear. Others in the thread seem to disagree that the filing deadline has been moved or not. This was how I read it.

If I have updated my understanding correctly now based on reading more of the supporting materials, it looks like you can file late without a penalty if your state agrees, based on a declared state of emergency, but that you are still encouraged to file on-time if you can. Only for payments, are they saying broadly that no penalties or interest will be assessed, if you owe money on your federal return, (which is as much power as the treasury probably has.)

California for example has one of the most detailed set of guidance by state in this document. My state of Indiana is saying they will follow the federal government's lead.

https://www.aicpa.org/content/dam/aicpa/advocacy/tax/downloa...

It's not clear at all.

The article could be read in a way that supports automatic extension of the filing deadline, but the announcement was very specific that it applies to the payment deadline:

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Tuesday said that individuals will be able to defer up to $1 million in tax payments to the IRS for 90 days in light of the coronavirus outbreak.

Without interest and penalties, filing late is probably meaningless, but still it would have been nice if they clearly stated that the filing deadline was postponed as well.

Of course, it would have been nice if they'd have planned this out in their contingency planning weeks ago and had a detailed announcement ready to post on irs.gov, but no one in government knew that a pandemic could turn into a bad thing. Aside from the government epidemiologists who have been warning about this all along, but they're just scientists, so what do they know!?

Does anyone know how to change Turbotax to pay 90 days later? I had set it up to pay what I owe on 04/14 and want to push it back to 07/14

Heh same question. https://ttlc.intuit.com/community/after-you-file/discussion/... is not encouraging.

What about the estimated taxes that are due in April? Can they also be made late? If you don't know your 2019 taxes, you can't use the safe harbor of using 100% (or 110%) of your 2019 taxes as your 2020 estimate.

What about prior year contributions? Those normally have an April 15th deadline too.

I’m not sure how much I’m going to contribute until I finish my taxes and run the numbers.

I would still plan on making any contributions to tax sheltered retirement accounts by the April 15th deadline until the Treasury and IRS state otherwise.

The point is I don't know if it is financially a good idea or not (because: reasons) until I finish my taxes. So no extension for me :(

You can file for the extension without filing your taxes. If it is a Roth IRA, you can remove the contributions at anytime penalty free (if you decide you didn't want to contribute the full $6000 amount for 2019). If it's a traditional IRA contribution, there is some complexity unfortunately. Also some complexity if you're at an income level where you're doing a "backdoor Roth", where you fully fund the IRA and then immediately convert to a Roth.

In my case it's a SEP-IRA, which makes it significantly more complex. But the other factor is that for cashflow reasons I'd have to sell assets to make the contribution and take the capital gains tax (or maybe a loss... ugh) on that sale, which can't be reversed later. As to whether this makes financial sense, it depends on if I have an underpayment penalty, which I'd have to finish my taxes to figure out...

So yeah, it's complicated. For reasons.

Edge cases suck. Sorry.

How does that work if you're over the income limit for Roth? I imagine a decent percent of HN is over that limit if single (and an even larger for traditional).

https://www.thebalance.com/what-to-do-if-you-contributed-too... (Excess Roth Contribution)

https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/investing/backdoor-roth-ira-... (Backdoor Roth IRA HowTo)

Same. I won't know whether I'm under the cutoff for various contributions until I finish my taxes.

The article summary contradicts the article:

"Ordinarily, individual income taxpayers must submit their 2019 tax returns and pay amounts owed by April 15."

In fact, it says that if you are owed a refund you shouldn't delay filing. The whole point is that you don't have to file or pay for another 90 days.

EDIT: No it doesn't. Missed the "Ordinarily"

This is not a delay in the filing date (yet, although many predict it's coming). This is a 90-day interest-free grace period for paying owed taxes.

Where's the contradiction?

Ordinarily: have to file and pay by April 15

News: ok to take up to 90 extra days to file and pay

Thank you. Amazing how I can read that multiple times, and still miss the first word. My brain is frazzled from dealing with an endless stream of emergency VPN, call forwarding, remote access, "how do I use Google Meet" requests.

Take some time for self care if you can.

But the news never said "take up to 90 extra days to file", at least I haven't been able to find a definitive statement that the filing deadline is extended.

A lot of people are assuming it, but Mnuchin only mentioned the payment deadline in his statement.

Interest-free loans of up to 10 million for corporations!

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