Federally Declared Disaster Areas Announced
Hurricane Helene has had a devastating impact on many communities throughout the Southeastern U.S., including many of our clients and team members. President Biden announced emergency declarations for the states of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. This emergency declaration allows the IRS to provide various tax relief to affected taxpayers, which it has done with the announcement linked here. Additional details for each specific state is provided in the following separate announcements:
- Alabama – announcement AL-2024-05
- Florida – announcement FL-2024-08
- Georgia – announcement GA-2024-08
- North Carolina – announcement NC-2024-08
- South Carolina – announcement SC-2024-08
- Tennessee – announcement TN-2024-01
- Virginia – announcement VA-2024-01
Disaster Relief
Pursuant to the IRS announcements, taxpayers residing in Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina qualify for a postponed deadline to May 1, 2025 for various tax filings with deadlines falling on or after September 22 (AL), September 24 (GA), or September 25 (NC and SC) and before May 1, 2025. This includes the September 30 deadline for extended 2023 trust returns and the October 15 deadline for extended 1040 and 1120 returns, as well as 2024 returns originally due in March and April of 2025. The May 1, 2025 deadline also applies to any payments normally due during this period, including 2024 quarterly estimated tax payments due December 16, 2024 or January 15, 2025, and the first quarter estimate for the 2025 tax year normally due April 15, 2025.
For taxpayers residing in Florida, Tennessee, and Virginia, the above relief is limited to specific counties as listed in the applicable IRS announcement, and the start dates are September 23 (FL), September 26 (TN) or September 25 (VA). Note that to the extent any of the areas in these seven states that previously qualified for the postponement date of February 3, 2025 under Hurricane Debby relief will now have those deadlines further postponed to May 1, 2025.
The IRS automatically identifies taxpayers located in the covered disaster area and applies filing and payment relief. For taxpayers who live outside of the impacted area, relief may still apply to extent their records necessary to meet a deadline included under the announcement are in the covered area. This includes taxpayers whose tax preparer is located in the covered disaster area, or for those depending on records (for example a Schedule K-1) that is supplied from a taxpayer within a disaster area. For those qualifying for the postponed deadline but that reside outside of the disaster area, the IRS has a process in place that allows Forvis Mazars to submit names of applicable taxpayers.
More content is forthcoming about casualty losses, and possible strategies for employers to provide employees assistance during this period of recovery. The IRS has also provided helpful FAQs here. For clients impacted by Hurricane Helene, we want to emphasize that the safety of you and your family should be the highest priority right now and reassure you that filing relief is in place. Likewise, we are focused on the safety of our own Forvis Mazars team members as they work to recover from this disaster.