 Internal Revenue Service IRS tax news! IRS May 15th tax deadline extended to October 16th for disaster area taxpayers in California, Alabama, and Georgia. The deadline has been extended, and you thought the IRS was tough on you. They're really harsh on lines, man. I mean, it looks like another poor line just can't catch a break. First, the IRS kills the line, and then the IRS tries to revive the line, making it into some kind of zombie line, known as a dead line. You know? I mean, the IRS is like that kid in school who just can't let go of a game, always wanting to extend it until they win. All the while attempting to convince you the rules of the game are totally different than what you thought they were, the game being unrecognizable by the end of it. You know the kind of person I'm talking about here, you know what I'm talking about, but dealing with the IRS, it's no game, man. I mean, it's like fighting a mythical beast with multiple heads. You cut off one deadline, and two more pop up in its place. It's like a deadline hydra. Deadline extension. It's like, oh great, just what we needed. More time to stress out about taxes. I'm stressing out. Yeah, guitar hero can be pretty stressful. I'm telling you, I'm starting to think the IRS enjoys watching a squirm. But you know, maybe instead of a game guide, you should just buy another game to kind of ease the stress. But hey, at least we have a little more time to procrastinate. I mean, prepare, you know what I mean? Have you ever heard of heroin hero? Have heroin hero? Absolutely. Dealing with the IRS is like a natural disaster for your bank account. Except for this one, I'm 100% certain that this disaster was actually man-made, you know? Like a natural disaster may destroy my home, but a tax season disaster destroys your wallet. And the wallet pays for the home for crying out loud. Like living in California, I'm starting to think the universe decided to throw everything at us this year. Storms, wildfires, and taxes. And you know, I'm pretty sure I could deal with the first two if it wasn't for that last one. But whatever. Sorry about the rant, though. As our Secretary of Transportation, Pete Buttigieg would say, while addressing a crowd, he only bothered to visit because Trump made him look like an insensitive, incompetent idiot. I lost my train of thought. So I think, so I lost my train of thought. Dang it. What was I talking about? I hate it when my thought goes off the rails like that. It's like having a mental train wreck, man. Oh, well, I'm sure whatever I was talking about wasn't important anyways. And my mind has been distracted by the one-year-old child government maternity leave they give me, and I'm about to take, you know? You know how it is, flying the old jet out to the Bahamas. It's like, honestly. Like, I'm starting to think he needs a slow burn of the contents of that toxic mental train wreck that crashed in his head. You know to clear the tracks. A few brain cells might be killed in the process, but whatever. IR 2023-33, February 24, 2023, Washington. Disaster area taxpayers in most of California and parts of Alabama and Georgia now have until October 16, 2023 to file various federal, individual, and business tax returns and make tax payments. The Internal Revenue Service announced today. Previously, the deadline had been postponed to May 15th for these areas. The IRS is offering relief to any area designated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. That's FEMA. There's a link to that here in these three states. There are four different eligible FEMA declarations, and the start dates and other details vary for each of these disasters. The current list of eligible locations and other details for each disaster are always available on the Tax Relief in Disaster Situations page on IRS.gov. There's a link to that here. The additional relief postpones until October 16th. Various tax filing and payment deadlines including those for most calendar year, 2022 individual and business returns. This includes individual income tax returns originally due on April 18th. Various business returns normally due on March 15th and April 18th. And returns of tax-exempt organizations normally due May 15th, among other things. This means that eligible taxpayers will also have until October 16th to make 2022 contributions to their IRA and help savings account, which is kind of nice because that can be some tax planning that you might be able to still do in that event. In addition, farmers who choose to forego making estimated tax payments and normally file their returns by March 1st will now have until October 16th, 2023 to file their 2022 return and pay any tax due. The October 16th deadline also applies to the estimated tax payments for the fourth quarter of 2022, originally due on January 17th, 2023. This means that taxpayers can skip making these payments and instead include it with the 2022 return they file on or before October 16th. So the October 16th deadline also applies to the 2023 estimated tax payments normally due on April 18th, June 15th and September 15th. It also applies to the quarterly payroll and excise tax returns normally due on January 31st, April 31st and July 31st. So the disaster assistance and emergency relief for individuals and businesses page, there's a link to that here, has details on other returns, payments and tax-related actions qualified for the additional time. So if you have other issues you think might be put in place, you can take a look at that page. For taxpayers in the affected areas do not need to file any extension paperwork and they do not need to call the IRS to qualify for the extended time because the IRS should be able to apply automatically because they have your location. The IRS it automatically provides filing and penalty relief to any taxpayers with an IRS address of record located in the disaster area. Therefore, taxpayers do not need to contact any agency to get this relief. So once again the IRS is pleading with us not to call them. Don't actually call us over here for goodness gracious's sake. However, if an affected taxpayer receives a late filing or late payment penalty notice from the IRS that has an original or extended filing payment or deposit due date falling within the postponement period, the taxpayer should call the number on the notice to have the penalty abated. If you do get something saying you got a penalty, when you should have got an automatic extension and you didn't get it, then call the number on the notice, not the 800 number because you possibly might actually get a hold of someone if you don't call the 800 number, although they say they're getting better even with that one in order to change or fix the situation. In addition, the IRS will work with any taxpayer who lives outside the disaster area but whose records necessary to meet a deadline occurring during the postponement period are located in the affected area. Taxpayers qualify for relief who live outside the disaster area need to contact the IRS at 866-562-5227. I won't say that a hundred times because there's a link to this in the description. You can check it out yourself. Obviously, if you're outside the area, the government doesn't have your address. Therefore, it can't apply the extension automatically and if you qualify but are outside the area, you would then need to contact them. This also includes workers assisting the relief activities who are affiliated with a recognized government or philanthropic organization. Individuals and businesses in a federally declared disaster area who suffered uninsured or unreimbursed disaster-related losses can choose to claim them on either the return for the year the loss occurred or the return of the prior year. So that's kind of an important little detail there because you have kind of a choice on when to claim the loss and the year of the disaster that would be in 2023 but you're not going to file 2023 till next year. So you'd have to delay the benefits and it's possible that your income is lowered due to the disaster. So if you take the disaster on that year, then it might not have as big an impact on your taxes if your income was lowered because you'll be in lower tax brackets and so possibly you could take it in another year. So you want to kind of think through that to get your maximum tax benefit under the law. So the tax relief is part of a coordinated federal response to the damage caused by these storms and is based on local damage assessments by FEMA for information on disaster recovery. You can visit disasterassistance.gov. There's a link to that here. There's a link to this other stuff here. There'll be a link to this in the description.