Tax Guru – Ker$tetter Letter

After a lot of teasing us with “will they or won’t they,” IRS has decided to give most of the country until Monday, May 17 to file 2020 tax returns or extensions.

Tax Day for individuals extended to May 17: Treasury, IRS extend filing and payment deadline

While we should all appreciate any extension of the filing deadline, just moving it back by one month seems a bit half-assed.  While most people were expecting another July 15 Tax Day, I was betting on June 15, which would have brought everyone else in sync with Texas, Louisiana and Oklahoma,

Of course, there is a possibility that one month from now, IRS may move Tax Day out by another month or two, adding even more confusion to the process of preparing and filing tax returns.

It’s another crazy Tax Season.

Update 3/19/21:  There are a lot of critics, such as the AICPA, of this limited filing delay because it doesn’t cover businesses, which have a lot of new confusing issues to deal with from the pandemic, and the fact that IRS supposedly still wants people to send in their first estimated (ES) tax payment for 2021 by April 15.  Again, this is very much like the confusion we went through at this time last year, when for a while, IRS was requiring the second ES payment for 2020 to be made by June 15, while the first wasn’t due until July 15.  IRS is a master at complicating what should be a simple across the board delay for everyone.