@hyfeng wrote:
I'm nearly done with my tax return. Since I owe a few thousand bucks, I need set up a direct debit payment date.
According to TurboTax's On Demand Tax Guide, "the requested payment date should not be later than April 15, 2020".
Since Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin just announced that the IRS will waive interest and penalty charges for 90 days for Americans who owe up to $1 million in taxes. Does this mean that I can safely set the direct debit payment date to some time in July, say, July 15th?
First, nothing is official yet, despite the president's announcement. Watch the IRS web site here
https://www.irs.gov/coronavirus
or Turbotax's blog here,
https://ttlc.intuit.com/community/articles/community-news-announcements/is-the-tax-deadline-delayed-...
What has been proposed is a delay of the payment deadline if you owe a payment, but not a delay of the filing deadline. (But nothing is official yet.)
Second, you should expect that if the IRS changes the payment deadline, it will take at least 2 weeks to program the change into Turbotax and release a new update.
What you can do now is select in Turbotax, "I will pay by mail." Then whenever you are ready, mail a check or make a direct payment at the IRS web site irs.gov/payments. You can pay be direct debit from your bank account for free, or use a credit card and pay a service charge. It would be your responsibility to pay "on time", whatever that turns out to be.
