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If your business has been harmed by Hurricane Helene, the Internal Revenue Service wants you to know that you may have extra time to file your tax returns and make payments—up to six months, depending on the type or return or payment and where you’re located.
People and businesses across “Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina and [in] parts of Florida, Tennessee, and Virginia” will be able to file their returns and make payments until May 1, 2025, the agency said in a press release.
If you’re in one of the states with partial eligibility, whether you qualify depends on whether the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) has designated your community a federally declared disaster area. More areas have been designated as disaster areas since the IRS’s Oct. 1 news release, so check whether your area qualifies at the IRS state tax relief directory and the FEMA list of declarations.
What qualifies. The May 1 deadline covers 2024 tax returns that would have been due in March or April 2025, as well as quarterly returns for payroll and excise tax that were due on Oct. 31, 2024, and Jan. 31 and April 30, 2025. Quarterly estimated income tax payments due on Jan. 15 and April 15, 2025, also qualify. If your business had a valid extension for a 2023 tax return, that also qualifies for the relief period. “Payments on these returns are not eligible for the extra time,” the IRS said, however, “because they were due last spring before the hurricane occurred.”
Claiming losses. The IRS is also giving businesses more time to decide whether to claim “uninsured or unreimbursed disaster-related losses” on their 2023 or 2024 tax returns. Businesses, like individuals, have “up to six months after the due date of the taxpayer’s federal income tax return for the disaster year (without regard to any extension of time to file)—to make the election,” the agency said.