May 15 due date change for storm disaster affected counties

[lisaFTC]

Lacerte sent an Alert on 1/17/2023 re: CA and IRS deadline extended to May 15 for certain counties related to the storm disaster.

Today, is 1/20/2023 and Lacerte has not sent another alert stating how the program will be treating the due date of May 15 on their instruction letters and estimated tax payments.

I called the  Lacerte rep today and she stated Lacerte will NOT be changing the due dates on the instruction letter or estimated tax payments nor will Lacerte be offering a checkbox for the option to change the due date. She stated the government agencies, IRS and FTB, will look at the zip code and determine if the taxpayer resides in, or the business is in, an affected county. If the taxpayer's zip code is in an affected county and the taxpayer files their return and makes their payments on May 15, then no penalties or interest will be assessed.

Hopefully, Lacerte will send an alert as soon as possible to inform everyone how their program will be handling this new due date for instruction letter purposes.

[lisaFTC]

I hope everyone is calling Lacerte and expressing their concerns.

I agree that Lacerte needs to fix the underpayment penalty calculation for the Jan 2023 estimate not having to be paid until May 15. And also fix the penalty for late payment and late filing for returns on extension after May 15 since the due date is May , not April.

For tax return instruction letter purposes for every module, as tax preparers we have to solve the problem ourselves. My solution is to put at the beginning of the instruction letter for every module :

IF you live in or have a business in a "qualifying" County, then the 2022 tax due to the IRS and CA FTB can be paid May 15 and the first 2023 IRS and CA FTB estimated tax payment can be paid May 15. For qualifying counties, please look at 

IRS: https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/irs-california-storm-victims-qualify-for-tax-relief-april-18-deadline-o...

dates-extended-to-may-15
FTB: https://www.gov.ca.gov/2023/01/13/tax-relief-for-californians-impacted-by-storms/

[Strongsilence-CPA]

Thank you lisa

[StevenD]

Very disappointed that Lacerte will not make this adjustment to CA returns.

[SUNNYCA]

Lacerte, please make the changes to CA returns. 

[RedSonya13]

Lacerte needs to fix the changes to CA returns.  CA has over 30 million residence and over 12% of the nations population, this affects every tax preparer who has  clients in CA.  Please make the changes.

[IntuitGabi]

There are No product changes expected for this extended deadline (same as in prior years). 

Questions such as
-How do I delay a quarterly payment?
-Can I delay the withdrawal of tax due when I e-file the return?
-How can my client make payments to the IRS after the original due date?
-How do I update my client letter with a later due date? 

....can be found in this help article: Disaster area tax extensions 

We're always open to feedback on help articles, be sure to answer Yes or No at the bottom of the article after "Was this helpful?". We monitor this on a weekly basis and review your comments. 

We really do hope this is helpful! Thanks for your participation. 

[SFSTaxPrep]

PATHETIC & LAME!  That "help" article is completely Useless, and I answered "No" at the bottom, and hope that everyone else does as well.

Lacerte won't allow ANY of the things granted by the Extension to be done.  Can't pay the Tax Due after April 18th, which is specifically allowed by the Extension.  Can't pay the 1st Qtr. 2023 Estimate after April 18th, which is specifically allowed by the Extension.

And the program is still going to assess Penalties for anyone who did not pay the 4th Quarter Estimate by January 17, in addition to assessing a month of Penalty & Interest for anyone who files and pays by the extended May 15 deadline.

[CMcCullough]

And it sounds like we can not file extensions electronically after 4/18.  As we are a California preparer, I am afraid this may make for a bad tax season.  What is everyone planning to do with this final answer from Lacerte?  How will you be working this tax year for your California clients?

[lisaFTC]

Unfortunately, 

The IRS system is NOT programmed to allow the efiling of extensions after the original filing due date (March 15, 2023 and April 18, 2023). To avoid issues with efiling extensions, we recommend you efile client's extensions by the original due date (March 15 and April 18).

We will be filing extensions for our clients on the original extension due date of March 15 and April 18.

We are not changing the client letter due dates because some of our clients are NOT in the disaster county. With over 2000 client, we are not going to customize our client letters.  We are putting this paragraph in our client letters immediately after the "Dear Client":

IF you live in or have a business in a "qualifying" County, then the 2022 tax due to the IRS and CA FTB can be paid May 15 and the first 2023 IRS and CA FTB estimated tax payment can be paid May 15. For qualifying Counties, please go to IRS.GOV and search "California storm relief 2023" and for CA, please go to FTB.CA.GOV and search "California storm relief 2023".

Since the FTB and IRS computers are not programmed for this May 15 date, we are advising all of our clients to pay the extension payment by March 15 and April 18. This will avoid IRS and FTB letters that assess late payment penalties. And this will avoid numerous hours by us to call the IRS and FTB to get the penalties waived.

And we all thought 2023 tax season would be easier! 

[SFSTaxPrep]

This also impacts Partnerships & S-Corporations, which are due March 15, as well as Corporations & Trusts due April 18.

I already sent out notification to my clients about the Extended deadlines, and some of them responded saying they had already heard about them.

This is going to create a Huge problem for me now, and apparently there is no way around it.

I pay over $10,000/year, between the Program & REP's, and I'm sure many of you do as well.  It is ridiculous that Lacerte won't help us out, and is now screwing us over.

This IRS Extension is now utterly Useless to me as a Tax Preparer, and it might as well have not even happened.