Taxpayers now have until July to file most federal and many state tax returns due to the COVID-19 pandemic. But not all federal forms for returns were extended.
Filings that were due on March 16, which include forms 1065, 1065-B, 1066 and 1120-S, were among those not postponed.
“We suspect [that’s] because the original deadline for filing had passed when the IRS issued” the postponement, said Nathan Pliskin, senior manager at Mazars USA in New York. “Moreover, those returns are eligible for an automatic six-month extension and, as returns for pass-through entities, no federal income tax payment is required with the filing.”
Any income tax liability flows through to individual or corporate returns that the IRS already extended, he added.
The postponement “doesn’t extend the filing of employment taxes [Form 941] and related payroll forms. It also doesn’t extend excise returns [Form 720],” added Steve Wittenberg, director of legacy planning at SEI Private Wealth Management in Oaks, Pa.
It also “does not appear” that the deadline to file Form 3520 is postponed—yet that deadline is generally linked to the due date of the related income tax return, Pliskin said.
Phyllis Jo Kubey, an enrolled agent in New York, suspects that more guidance from the IRS is on the way. The American Institute of CPAs has requested that all federal income tax returns and payments originally due March 3 to July 15 be bumped to a July 15 deadline, she added.
The IRS has posted notices on the changed deadlines.
These are among other changes in IRS filing relief:
• Estimated quarterly taxes. The payment deadline for the first-quarter 2020 taxes has been extended to July 15. Payment for the second quarter of 2020 taxes remains due on June 15 and “may be a trap for the unwary if taxpayers incorrectly assume all 2020 estimates have been postponed,” Pliskin said.