The government has provided another round of filing relief for taxpayers affected by the coronavirus shutdowns by pushing back the deadlines for some time-sensitive actions regarding employment taxes and benefit plans.
On May 28 the IRS issued Notice 2020-35, 2020-25 IRB 1, which postpones deadlines on actions for items related to employment taxes, employee benefit plans, and exempt organizations due between March 30 and July 15.
The IRS initially provided pandemic-related deadline relief by postponing tax actions with an April 15 deadline until July 15. But in that guidance (Notice 2020-23, 2020-18 IRB 742) issued April 10, the agency broadened the relief to generally apply to all taxpayers with a return filing deadline or payment due between April 1 and July 15.
The relief was granted after President Trump issued an emergency declaration in March that instructed the Treasury secretary to provide tax deadline relief to Americans affected by the coronavirus shutdown under section 7508A.
Now, with Notice 2020-35, the IRS is expanding on that relief by adjusting the definition of affected taxpayer to include time-sensitive actions on employment taxes, employee benefit plans, EOs, and other items.
Some of the time-sensitive actions included in the relief are corrections of employment tax reporting errors using the interest-free adjustment process and applications for a funding waiver for a defined benefit plan that’s not a multiemployer plan.
Notice 2020-35 clarifies that for time-sensitive actions for provisions of the code in which there are parallel provisions under ERISA, the notice applies for the purposes of the ERISA provisions as well.
Certified professional employer organizations also caught a break, receiving a temporary waiver to file some employment tax returns and their accompanying schedules on magnetic media, which the notice says includes electronic filing “as well as other media specifically permitted under applicable guidance.”