At the height of the pandemic, taxpayers faced multiple obstacles when it came to filing their 2019 and 2020 tax returns. Business offices were closed. Tax professionals may have fallen sick. And the IRS was virtually unreachable by phone due to a backlog of unprocessed paper returns that started in 2020.
As a result, many of you, through no fault of your own, were subject to late-filling penalties.
To help struggling taxpayers affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Internal Revenue Service has issued Notice 2022-36, which provides penalty relief to most people and businesses who filed certain 2019 or 2020 returns late.
There is nothing you have to do. The IRS is automatically removing failure-to-file penalties for 2019 and 2020 returns. If you paid the penalty in full, the balance will be refunded. Again, you will automatically receive your refunds or credits, with many of these payments being completed by the end of September.
If you’d like more information, you can visit the IRS website here.