Tax Relief Available for those Affected by Hurricane Harvey; IRS Monitoring Hurricane Irma, Upcoming Deadline
PHOENIX - - The Internal Revenue Service continues to monitor Hurricane Irma, but reminds calendar-year partnerships that the due date for filing a return after receiving an extension remains Sept. 15 following a recent change in the tax law.
The Surface Transportation and Veterans Health Care Choice Improvement Act of 2015 changed the date by which a partnership must file its annual return, Form 1065 or Form 1065-B. For calendar year partnerships, the due date for filing the annual return or request for an extension changed from April 15 (April 18 in 2017) to March 15. The due date for filing the return after receiving an extension of time to file was Sept. 15 when the due date was April 15, because the duration of the extension was five months. Under the new law, the due date for filing the return after receiving an extension of time to file is still Sept. 15, because the duration of the extension of time to file is now six months.
The IRS issued guidance, Notice 2017-47, providing penalty relief for certain partnerships that did not file the required returns by the new due date for their tax year that began in 2016, but filed their returns or their extension requests for that year by the 15th day of the fourth month after the end of their taxable year (April 18 for calendar-year filers). If not for the Surface Transportation Act, these returns and requests for extension of time to file would have been on time.
The new deadlines are included in the instructions for Form 7004, instructions for Form 1065 and the instructions for Form 1065-B.
The IRS provided tax relief to taxpayers affected by Hurricane Harvey, including partnerships; affected taxpayers (as defined in the news release providing relief) have until Jan. 31, 2018, to file their returns. Calendar-year partnerships that are affected taxpayers that also receive relief from penalties under Notice 2017-47 if they file a return on or before Sept. 15, 2017, will receive relief from the failure-to-file penalty if they file the return by Jan. 31, 2018.
As Hurricane Irma approaches, the IRS is closely monitoring the storm and will be assessing next steps that will be needed for areas declared a federal disaster area.
The IRS projected that corporations and partnerships would file almost 6.9 million extension requests during 2017. The IRS expects to receive more than 4 million partnership returns during 2017.