IRS postpones deadline for gift and GST taxes due to coronavirus

The Internal Revenue Service is postponing the date for filing gift tax and generation-skipping transfer tax returns and making payments until July 15 because of the novel coronavirus pandemic.

The Internal Revenue Service is postponing the date for filing gift tax and generation-skipping transfer tax returns and making payments until July 15, 2020, because of the novel coronavirus pandemic.

The IRS issued Notice 2020-20 on Friday, extending the relief it provided earlier this month on the tax-filing and payment dates for most other types of tax returns. The IRS also said the associated interest, additions to tax, and penalties for late filing or late payment will be suspended for the gift tax and generation-skipping transfer tax until July 15.

CORONAVIRUS IMPACT: ADDITIONAL COVERAGE
Patrick La Pine, LSCU

Patrick La Pine is president and CEO of the League of Southeastern Credit Unions, which serves CUs in Florida and Alabama.

Vinay Pai is an experienced technology executive with a track record of leading high-performing international organizations and driving technology transformation at scale and business growth globally. As the senior vice president of engineering at Bill.com, he leads the technology teams that develop and deliver the Bill.com product portfolio. Prior to joining Bill.com, he was SVP of engineering at First Data, where he led engineering for the Clover point-of-sale product line. Earlier, Pai held several leadership roles in the small business group during his eight years at Intuit, which he joined as part of the PayCycle acquisition. Most recently, as vice president for Intuit Developer Platform, he led the business segment responsible for the QuickBooks ecosystem of third-party applications and developers. He has also held engineering leadership roles at Cassatt, Sun Microsystems and Schlumberger, and founded a startup on the Apple platform that delivered three products.

Pay has MS electrical engineering, BS electrical engineering and BA computer science degrees from Rice University.

David Henka is CEO and President of ActiveRADAR, a company specializing in pharmacy cost reduction programs for employers, health plans, and trust funds.

The relief is automatic and applies to any amounts due related to these types of returns. There’s no requirement to file for an extension and the three-month period between the original due date of April 15 and the new deadline of July 15 will be disregarded in terms of any interest, penalties or extra taxes for those who fail to file a Form 709 United States Gift and Generation-Skipping Transfer Tax Return by April 15.

Groups of tax and accounting professionals such as the American Institute of CPAs, the National Society of Accountants and the National Conference of CPA Practitioners have been pressing the IRS to provide additional forms of tax relief beyond the initial relief granted for tax payments from coronavirus victims.

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The IRS headquarters building in Washington, D.C.
Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg