FTB Announces Coronavirus Tax Relief

As the impact of the COVID-19 coronavirus continues to unfold we are closely monitoring the situation to continue to provide you with expert accounting and business advice as well as maintain the safety of our clients and team members. At this time, we are operating as normal and will alert you if these plans change.

FTB announces measures…
IRS is still in limbo

We do have some important news to bring you on the filing of your state of California income tax returns and estimated tax payments – and no, unfortunately the Treasury and IRS have not provided any guidance at all as of the time of this email for what they plan. Be careful not to believe all you read on social media, etc. As soon as anything federally is officially implemented, we will let you know right away.

On Friday, The Franchise Tax Board (FTB) announced special tax relief for California taxpayers affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. “Affected taxpayers” are granted an extension to file 2019 California tax returns and make certain payments until June 15, 2020, in line with Governor Newsom’s March 12 Executive Order. This relief includes moving the various tax filing and payment deadlines that occur on March 15, 2020, through June 15, 2020, to June 15, 2020.

This includes:

  • Partnerships and LLCs who are taxed as partnerships whose tax returns are due on March 15 now have a 90-day extension to file and pay by June 15.

  • Individual filers whose tax returns are due on April 15 now have a 60-day extension to file and pay by June 15.

  • Quarterly estimated tax payments due on April 15 now have a 60-day extension to pay by June 15.

But there is a significant rub here, just what an “affected taxpayer” might be is as this moment not defined. We expect that you must be incurring some type of hardship directly related to the pandemic, but we cannot yet provide particularly clear guidance on this. Stay tuned.

The FTB also said that the June 15 extended due date may be pushed back even further if the Internal Revenue Service grants a longer relief period. There are some special filing procedures to use to take advantage of these extensions which we now have in place.

For now, we strongly urge everyone to proceed as usual with the gathering of your tax records and tax preparation. We are working to help you keep more of what you make and stay current with your tax matters as normal.

If you have any questions or concerns please do not hesitate to call Scholl & Company at (831) 758-5966.