Returns to Normal?

Due to the pressure on Americans dealing with coronavirus, this year’s federal income tax deadline was postponed to July 15.

But the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has made clear that Tax Day won’t be pushed back again.

COVID-19 has made for a less-than-normal tax season. With many IRS employees working from home and local tax assistance offices shut down, taxpayers have struggled to get their questions answered. It also led to a backlog of paper returns.

Meanwhile, the agency had more work than usual after it was tasked in late March with processing the more than 160 million direct stimulus payments — a key part of Congress’s economic response to the pandemic.

At the end of June, the IRS had processed nearly 11% fewer returns that it did at the same point last year, and had received 3.5% fewer.

This year, the IRS will pay interest on refunds issued after April 15 for returns filed before July 15. Taxpayers issued a refund between April 15 and June 30 will earn 5% interest and those refunded between June 30 and September 30 will earn 3% interest.

In addition, most state individual income tax deadlines were also postponed to July 15.

But not every state followed suit. Hawaii pushed its deadline to July 20, and deadlines in Idaho, New Hampshire and Virginia have already passed.