Texas residents, including roughly 176,000 military service members, have an additional two months to file their taxes after deadly winter storms battered the state.
The IRS said on its website Monday that Texas residents now have until June 15 to make their tax payments and file individual and business tax returns that otherwise would have been due April 15.
The extension follows the Federal Emergency Management Agency's recent disaster declaration for the storms and applies to the whole state, the IRS said. Taxpayers in other states that were affected by those storms will automatically receive the same filing and payment extensions if FEMA makes disaster declarations there as well.
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According to demographic data on the Defense Department's Military OneSource website, there were about 176,000 active-duty, National Guard and Reserve troops in Texas in 2019.
Susan Mitchell, the executive director of the Armed Forces Tax Council, said that the extension will apply only to service members who actually reside in Texas -- not those who have Texas listed as their home state but live elsewhere, reported Military Times.
The postponement covers tax filing and payment deadlines starting Feb. 11. This means that business returns that would have been due March 15 are also pushed back to June 15. And affected taxpayers will now have until June 15 to make 2020 IRA contributions, the IRS said.
The IRS has details on other returns, payments and tax-related actions that are eligible for deadline extensions on its website.
The deadline extensions automatically apply to any taxpayer with an IRS address of record located in the disaster area, so taxpayers will not need to contact the agency. But if a taxpayer does get a late filing or late penalty payment notice with a due date during the postponement period, the IRS said to call a number on the notice to have the penalty abated.
It added that it will work with any taxpayer who lives outside the disaster zone but has records necessary to meet a deadline located inside the area battered by winter storms. Those taxpayers should call the IRS at 866-562-5227.
-- Stephen Losey can be reached at stephen.losey@monster.com. Follow him on Twitter at @StephenLosey
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