After a hurricane, the last thing you want to worry about is your taxes. The IRS and most states will push back filing requirements and any related penalties (interest is always charged).
HURRICANE IDALIA NOTICEIf you lived in Florida, Georgia, or South Carolina and were impacted by Hurricane Idalia, chances are your Federal business and individual income tax returns won't be due until at least February 15, 2024. Check the IRS' Tax Relief in Disaster Situations website for further information. |
FEMA disaster declaration
With the IRS, and most states, FEMA must declare a federal disaster area for where you operate your business. FEMA keeps a list of all current and historical declared disasters along with information on various types of Federal support as well. If no federal disaster area is declared, you can’t use these benefits. Oh, and an interesting benefit, if your tax preparer is located in a federal disaster area, you get to follow these rules (even if your business is not located in a federal disaster area).
Internal Revenue Service (IRS)
The IRS' tax relief in disaster situations website provides up-to-date information to understand if the deadline to file your returns has been extended.
The IRS will also provide some relief to federally declared disaster areas. The IRS will typically:
- Push back filing deadlines by several months.
- Push back certain payment deadlines, such as quarterly estimated taxes.
- Provide penalty relief for certain late filing and payment deadlines.
While the IRS provides a little more time to make your payments and file returns, interest is never relieved. If you can, we recommend you make a payment of what you owe or think you will owe in taxes sooner rather than later. You’ll also want to get your returns filed by new deadline set by the IRS. If you don’t, you won’t be able to get out of the penalties and they can get fairly high very quickly.
It's also worth noting that if your tax return preparer is located within a disaster area but is not, you usually will qualify for an extension to file your taxes. This is because your tax return preparer could have been displaced by the storm and you should not be penalized because of it.
Florida Sales Tax
Depending on the impact of the storm, the Florida Department of Revenue will typically push back any sales tax filing requirements and payment deadlines as well. The Florida Department of Revenue maintains an emergency information page that provides information on emergency orders and other important information such as adjusted due dates, adjusted payment dates and where you can go for support.
