Keeping Up With the Speed of Change: COVID-19 Vs. the IRS


We have all seen the world change in unprecedented ways due to the spread of the 2019 Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19). Every area of life has been touched and certainly we have not seen the last of what is going to happen. With that understood one area that seems to be unfazed is taxes. With the March 15 (Business) and April 15 (Individual) deadlines officially unchanged, there is a growing movement to adjust due to the pandemic of COVID-19. What will this mean?

First, remember that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) always has the power to change the final filing date for Tax Returns. In 2018 the IRS gave Taxpayers an extra day when the agencies computer system failed on April 15. This power is found in the code that created the IRS, which states that the Secretary of the Treasury “may grant a reasonable extension of time for filing any return, declaration, statement, or other document required by this title or by regulations.” Congress sent a letter, dated March 10, asking what the IRS is planning to do regarding an extension of the due date related to the COVID-19 situation. Now that it has spread to the level of a pandemic according to the World Health Organization (WHO) the questions are growing louder. After the March 11 Presidential address, it seems that a tax deadline delay is coming, but only for certain groups. This is a challenging situation that is changing day-by-day. In the big picture, taxes may not seem to be too important, but they will big impacted, just like everything else.

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