In an unprecedented move, the U.S. government will postpone the April 15 deadline for tax payments for millions of individuals, giving Americans another 90 days to pay their 2019 income tax bills, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Richard Rubin, Laura Saunders, and Andrew Restuccia for The Wall Street Journal:
The IRS, using authority under President Trump’s national-emergency declaration, will waive interest and penalties as well, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said at the White House Tuesday. The delay is available to people who owe $1 million or less and corporations that owe $10 million or less, Mr. Mnuchin said.
The government granted the extension to give taxpayers a financial cushion as households and businesses cope with the sudden slowdown in economic activity caused by the coronavirus outbreak. The move could provide households with hundreds of billions of dollars in temporary liquidity, Mr. Mnuchin said last week in previewing the government’s actions. “We are going to use all the tools we have,” Mr. Mnuchin said on Tuesday. “And what tools we don’t have, we’re going to go to Congress.”
As of March 6, the IRS had received 68 million individual income-tax returns. That was less than half of the returns that the IRS normally expects to get, meaning that tens of millions of people can benefit from the relaxed deadlines.
MacDailyNews Take: The U.S. postpones tax payments? Hey, some good news for a change! Expect the individual U.S. states to follow.
Yes! July 15…..