We have been having a ton of rain and nasty weather in this part of the Ozarks for the past several weeks. I received this from a client with whom I have been working on establishing payment amounts for their extensions:

Kerry, I thought our county got an auto extension because of the flooding until late may.  If not, I can come up with 52k like i did last year without a lot of pain. 

I checked both the IRS and DFA websites and found this notice on the DFA site:

April 11, 2008

Tax Relief for Disaster Victims

LITTLE ROCK, AR— The Department of Finance and Administration announced today that taxpayers in 52 counties declared state disaster areas due to damages caused by severe storms, tornadoes, and flooding will be provided special tax relief. The Department is extending the deadline for taxpayers who reside or have a business in the disaster areas to file and pay any tax due on their individual or corporate income tax returns until August 15, 2008.

Affected Counties The affected counties are: Arkansas, Baxter, Benton, Boone, Carroll, Clark, Clay, Cleburne, Conway, Crawford, Craighead, Cross, Faulkner, Fulton, Garland, Greene, Hot Springs, Howard, Independence, Izard, Jackson, Jefferson, Johnson, Lawrence, Lee, Logan, Lonoke, Madison, Marion, Mississippi, Monroe, Nevada, Newton, Perry, Phillips, Pike, Pope, Prairie, Pulaski, Randolph, St. Francis, Saline, Scott, Searcy, Sharp, Stone, Van Buren, Washington, White, Woodruff, and Yell.

In addition the Department will waive the failure to file, failure to pay, and interest charges for businesses unable to make withholding deposits for tax payments due April 3, 2008 to May 27, 2008 because of the recent storms, tornadoes, and flooding.

When claiming the special extension on a 2007 State income tax return payment document, please write Disaster Storms” on the front of the mailing envelope and on the top left corner of the income tax form. This helps speed-up processing of your return. If you receive a notice of penalties and interest, call (501) 682-1100 to request relief.

My reply to the client:

The floods were only a state level disaster, not Federal.  DFA has put out announcement that they are giving people in the flood counties until 8/15/08 to file their Arkansas tax returns.  This does not apply to IRS.  I just checked the IRS news site and there is no mention of any special extensions.

My experience with DFA is that they are terrible about actually following through with this kind of special deal.  The relief notice even says that anyone receiving penalty notices will have to call a special phone number in order to get them dropped.

If you have the money, it would be safest to just pay both the IRS and DFA amounts by Tuesday.

Kerry

Additional Info:

Because these severe weather problems also affected the Missouri part of the Ozarks, I wondered if that state had a similar extension of the tax deadline.  I just checked on the MDOR’s website and they have given people in the affected counties until May 19, 2008 to file their 2007 tax returns..