Tuesday, September 06, 2011

Another Update on Hurrican Irene Relief

My blogs from last week created quite a stir...

I know that a lot have you have a lot of questions about these extended deadlines, and while I do not necessarily have an answer to them all, I am trying to flush out as much info as possible.

First, as of this morning, Suffolk County has been identified as an additional Federally Declared Disaster area on the IRS website.  As such the extended deadlines apply to taxpayers in Suffolk as well as Nassau.  Before you ask, the five boroughs of NYC have not been identified to date.

Next, the two questions that I have received the most are:

What about NYS and NYC? and Do the rules apply if my office is in the Federally Declared Disaster Area but my client is not?

To date, NYS and NYC have made no announcement as to a position regarding the extended dates.  It would seem logical that they would follow the Federal dates, as the NYS returns are based on the Federal return, but logic may be just the reason that they DON'T do it!!!  As soon as I know of an official position I will pass it along.

The question about the location of the preparer was one that perplexed me as well.  While the original IRS notices did not directly address this issue, the notice regarding the one-week extension to September 22nd for certain preparers made inference to the fact that preparers in the Federally Declared Disaster Areas were covered by the October 31st extended date.  To try to get some clarification, I called the IRS today and spoke to a very helpful representative who walked me through the IRS website and pointed me to a pronouncement which seems to say that whenever there is a Federally Declared Disaster and the IRS extends filing deadlines, the extension applies to preparers in the designated areas if the records necessary to prepare the returns are maintained in the designated area, even if the taxpayer is not.  The IRS representative then pointed me to a pronouncement from the IRS which directs practitioners to get such clients "pre-approved" for this type of extension on an individual client-by-client basis or on a bulk basis.  The process for this application is located on the IRS website. 

Please understand that this is the information that I received from one rep at the IRS, and although she seemed to know exactly what she was talking about, I would highly recommend that if you are in the designated area but have clients outside and would like to take advantage of the extended deadlines that you call the number on the web page linked above and get confirmation that you are eligible.

Good luck and stay tuned....