Treasury pushes tax payment deadline back 90 days due to coronavirus

PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio/CNN) — Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin announced on Tuesday that individuals and businesses will have an extra 90 days to pay the IRS if they owe additional income tax for 2019. However, there seems to be some confusion on what exactly that means for taxpayers.

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Normally, taxpayers owe the amount due by April 15. But as part of the government's response to the coronavirus crisis, individual and small business filers will be able to defer payments of up to $1 million, and corporations can defer up to $10 million — without incurring interest or penalties.

But taxpayers should still file their federal returns by April 15, Mnuchin said.

“We encourage those Americans who can file their taxes, to continue to file their taxes on April 15 because for many Americans you will get tax refunds. We don't want you to lose out on those tax refunds,” Mnuchin said.

“It was quite confusing,” noted Dr. Steve Balsam, a professor of accounting at Temple University's Fox School of Business. “Now if you don't have the money to pay your taxes on April 15, you have a 90-day extension to pay your taxes and no interests or penalties will be charged. However, according to the IRS and the IRS website, there has been no extension to the filing date. So you are still expected to file your return by April 15.”

For those who are still uncertain, Balsam runs the IRS-supervised Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program at Temple, a free service that provides help to those who make less than $56,000. VITA’s services have moved online for the first time due to social distancing guidelines.

Taxpayers can still request a six-month extension to file returns, like they could in any other year.

The new deadline announced Tuesday applies to federal tax income payments only. It's up to states to set their own deadlines.

KYW Newsradio reached out to the IRS. It said details are not available on the tax payment delay and won't be commenting on it for now.

The-CNN-Wire™ contributed to this report. The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2020 Cable News Network, Inc., a WarnerMedia Company. All rights reserved.