As you may have heard, the IRS is moving the April 15 deadline for this year to May 17 giving taxpayers a few extra weeks to complete their returns. This extension only applies to individuals filing Form 1040.
This automatic extension does NOT apply to 2021 Q1 estimated tax payments that are due April 15, 2021. Those are still due April 15, 2021 (as of the time of this update on March 18). Because tax return work has to be done in order to calculate the estimated payments, the postponement of the filing deadline is of little-to-no benefit in those situations.
It also does not currently apply to C-Corporations (Form 1120) or tax returns for Estates and Trusts (Form 1041).
While this is certainly helpful for some taxpayers, like many things it causes other issues for us to complete your return. We wanted to communicate our plans for addressing the new deadline.
We will continue to work on completing returns that we received by our normal cutoff date of March 11. Returns received after that and before April 12 will be prepared as best we can. There are a number of other types of returns that are due between April 15 and May 17 that we can’t move or extend so this deadline extension doesn’t help create any capacity for us to complete tax returns.
For those returns that we can’t complete we will prepare an extension before May 17. In order for us to be able to accurately do that and give our staff the time necessary we must receive your information no later than April 12. If it’s received past that date we can not prepare an extension for your 2020 tax return. As a reminder an extension merely gives additional time to file a return but does not extent the time to pay any tax due. If you do not pay what you ultimately owe for 2020 by May 17 the IRS will charge interest and penalties.
If you normally pay estimated tax payments and we have to extend your 2020 return, we will include the 1st quarter 2021 estimated payment in with any extension payment due on May 17. This gives us the time necessary to prepare an accurate as possible extension and also gives you an extra month to make the 1st quarter estimated payment.
We are continuing to work diligently to process returns as usual and will be in contact with clients directly with updated instructions as applicable. Our team is here to sort through any confusion you may have about when, how, and where you should file.
