In a press briefing Tuesday morning, US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said that individual taxpayers who owe up to a million dollars in federal taxes to IRS can defer paying until July 15, while corporations can defer up to $10 million.
“All you have to do is file your taxes – you’ll automatically not get charged interest and penalties,” he said. “We encourage those Americans who can file their taxes to continue to file on April 15, because for many, you will get tax refunds, and we don’t want you to lose out on those refunds.”
Mnuchin made a point of saying that taxpayers could still file for extension, which would allow them to defer filing and payment until October 15.
No specific mention was made of changing the filing deadline.
From everything that was coming out in prior announcements, I think we were all expecting that the IRS would grant a filing extension. But they’re not granting a filing extension – they’re granting a payment extension only.
The promise to waive “all penalties and interest” by IRS for this 90 day period does not appear to apply to late filing of returns. So If you don’t file for an extension but pay within next 90-day period, the question is, will the IRS waive the failure to file penalty? At present it does not appear so. They’re waiving all penalties for not paying, but what about for not filing. Some in media are saying he waived both, but that’s not what was announced.
