The tax day cometh

Taxes due on Wednesday, accountants ready for ‘never-ending tax season’ to be done

Americans have been shown a small mercy by the U.S. Department of the Treasury and Internal Revenue Service extending the tax filing deadline to July 15.

That day is finally on the horizon, and it couldn't be soon enough for accountants everywhere.

"I came back into public accounting to this mess of COVID and how it's affecting everybody," Harris CPAs tax manager Terry Kissler said Friday. "I'd rather be out golfing, like I'd normally be in July."

Tax day is Wednesday, three months later than when it would normally fall on April 15. This extension was provided to relieve some financial and economic pressure for those struggling during a global pandemic. The whole scenario is something Kissler never thought he'd see.

"It's kind of crazy," he said. "It's put everybody in a strain to adapt on the fly."

Hale Fields, director of the Harris CPAs Coeur d'Alene office, said he and his colleagues in the industry have been working tons.

“It just kind of feels like a never-ending tax season now," he said. "Normally, we’d be working around the clock up to the April 15 deadline, and so I feel like we took our foot off the gas a little bit in the end of March and the beginning of April when the deadlines were extended. That was nice, because we just had to abruptly start working remotely. We closed our offices for quite a while, and we still have half our staff working remotely."

Fields said clients have been patient and understanding, "but I think it can be a little stressful for them because even though their returns aren’t filed late, they’re getting filed later in the year than they normally do.

"And it’s been a little confusing too, because the federal deadline was pushed to July 15, but Idaho only extended their payment deadline to June 15," he added. "We were working on Idaho extension estimates last month, and a lot of people didn’t even realize that there was an Idaho payment deadline coming up."

For those who haven't filed, take a deep breath. Fields advised for those who miss the deadline to file as soon as they can so penalties don't pile up. However, for those who are late, appeals can me made to the IRS and state of Idaho to waive penalty fees.

"If it's extenuating circumstances, a lot of times they are flexible," Fields said. "You know, if you're late every year, they're not going to cut you a break. But if this is the first time you’ve ever been late and it’s because of unusual circumstances, it's worth reaching out to them and giving them a shot, because a lot of times they’ll waive the penalties."

The pandemic has struck the tax filing world in different ways. AARP's free, volunteer Tax Aide program reopened in June at the Silver Lake Mall and Lake City Center. Social distancing was in place and masks were worn.

"That was when the county was in reasonably good shape," said Warren Fisher, Tax Aide's regional coordinator for Kootenai and Shoshone counties. "All of a sudden the number of virus cases in Kootenai County doubled in less than a week."

In the few weeks Tax Aide volunteers were on site, they helped well more than 200 people, Warren said.

"We were helping people who hadn't done their returns yet," he said. "The people were relieved and thankful that we were there to help them finish their return for the season."

But those numbers were way down from normal. This season, volunteer tax preparers assisted about 20 people a day, when normally they see between 80 and 100.

Then a family member of a volunteer contracted COVID-19 and operations had to shut down early.

Fisher said although Tax Aide won't be on site up to tax day as usual, those who need assistance leading up to Wednesday and afterward can connect with Tax Aide by contacting Lake City Center at 208-667-4628. Volunteers can help with issues including extensions, late filings and how to proceed when something was omitted from tax returns or if they weren't properly filed.

"Because we shut down when we did and only did a couple hundred returns, my guess is there's still 2,500 taxpayers we didn’t get to help for free who will have to pay or not do them at all," Fisher said.

Fields said overall, it's just been a weird tax season.

"Now we’re still trying to get state and federal taxes done, but we’re also going places with our family on the weekends and doing all that normal summer stuff," he said. "We don’t normally work 60 hours a week in the summer doing taxes, so it’s trying to balance both."