The COVID-19 pandemic forced the Internal Revenue Service to push last year’s income tax filing deadline from the usual April 15 date to July 15 — but don’t count on a repeat this year.
“Right now, we are not planning any administrative extension beyond the April 15 normal deadline,” Ken Corbin, commissioner of the IRS’s Wage and Investment Division, told reporters Thursday.
On Friday, Feb. 12, the IRS will begin processing 2020 income tax returns. That’s a slightly later start than usual because the IRS needed extra time to prepare for tax season after distributing a second round of stimulus checks, beginning in late December.
If a third round of stimulus checks are authorized during tax season, Corbin, who is also the IRS’ “chief taxpayer experience officer,” said he didn’t think that task would cause the agency to push back the filling deadline. That echoes IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig’s view that the IRS could simultaneously send out another round of stimulus checks while processing 2020 returns.
President Joe Biden is calling for $1,400 stimulus checks as part of his $1.9 trillion rescue package and senior Democrats are aiming to get it passed by the end of February.
With the late start to tax season and the traditional April 15 deadline in place, taxpayers have a more compressed window this year to submit their taxes.
The IRS knows people have a lot riding on their taxes this year. If they didn’t receive the first or second stimulus checks, or didn’t get the full amount, they can claim that amount as a credit (a Recovery Rebate Credit to be precise) on their 2020 taxes, which gets lumped into their refund.
Furthermore, refunds by themselves can be a much-needed cash infusion. The average refund amount for overpayment of 2019 income taxes was $2,549, according to IRS statistics.
The filing deadline is the time when taxpayers need to either get their return in, or file for an extension to Oct. 15. The filing deadline is also the payment deadline for taxes owed, but the IRS can arrange payment via installment plans.
The IRS recommends people electronically file their returns and include direct deposit information for quickest receipt and processing of returns.
People who mailed in paper returns know that all too well. The IRS had to temporarily shut down offices last spring as the pandemic spread. The agency accumulated a massive backlog of mail, including millions of returns.
As of late January, the IRS was still processing 6.7 million 2019 paper returns, Corbin said Thursday.
At this point, “those returns really are waiting on us getting information from the taxpayer so that we can resolve that issue,” Corbin said. Some of the roadblocks include missing schedules or discrepancies in the math. Those refunds will come as paper checks, he added.
The pending pile of 2019 returns shouldn’t interfere with IRS capacity to process 2020 returns and turn around those refunds, Corbin said.
