Some taxpayers given until Aug. 15 to file
Some flood victims in the Dakotas and Minnesota will have until Aug. 15 to file their tax returns.

The extension applies to anyone in the hardest hit areas whose tax returns were due April 15 or between then and Aug. 15.

Specifically, the extension is for individuals and businesses in North Dakota’s Cass, Grand Forks, Richland, Traill, Walsh and Pembina counties, Minnesota’s Clay, Norman, Polk, Wilkin, Big Stone, Chippewa, Kittson, Marshall and Yellow Medicine counties and 15 South Dakota counties.

"This will be a welcome relief for the people of the Red River Valley who have not yet had the opportunity to file their taxes," said Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D. "They now can focus all of their energies on cleaning up their homes and businesses and rebuilding their lives."

The Minnesota and North Dakota tax departments will give taxpayers in those counties until Aug. 15 to file state tax returns as well.

The Internal Revenue Service earlier extended the filing deadline to May 30 for anyone living in counties declared federal disaster areas. That included all of North Dakota and South Dakota and 53 Minnesota counties. Taxpayers in counties declared disaster areas but outside the hardest hit counties can get an automatic extension to Aug. 15 by filling out form 4868 and sending it to the IRS by May 30.

Taxpayers who file their returns and pay the taxes they owe by the new deadlines won’t be charged late-filing or late-payment fees. However, they will be charged interest, at 9 percent, from the original date the tax was due until it’s paid.

Dorgan recently introduced legislation to eliminate the interest requirement.

The IRS said the extension to Aug. 15 will give many taxpayers, especially the self-employed, extra time to fund their retirement plans for 1996. Now they have until Aug. 15 to put money in a simplified employee pension or Keogh plan and still get a deduction on their 1996 tax return.

Taxpayers with the May 30 filing deadline have until then to make simplified employee pension or Keogh plan contributions.

The new filing deadlines did not extend the time for making contributions to an individual retirement account. The 1996 contributions had to be made by April 15.

The IRS won’t charge a penalty if people in the hardest hit counties wait until June 30 to make quarterly estimated tax payments normally due April 15 and June 16. Corporations with estimated tax payments due during April, May or June also can wait until June 30 to pay without penalty.

Taxpayers in the other disaster areas have until May 30 to make 1997 individual and corporate estimated tax payments due April 15 or May 15 without penalty.

The IRS said it can’t extend the deadline for depositing employment or excise taxes, but it won’t assess a penalty on taxpayers in the hardest hit counties if all tax deposits due on or after April 1 and before June 30 are made by June 30. Also, the IRS won’t charge a late-filing or late-payment penalty if employment and excise tax returns for the first and second quarters of 1997 are filed by Aug. 15.