Did Pushing Back the Tax-Filing Deadline Do Americans a Disservice?
When the COVID-19 crisis first hit home, it caught a lot of people off-guard even though reports of an emerging health threat had been circulating since early in the year. In fact, many had to upend their lives at a moment's notice by shifting to remote work, pulling their kids out of school, and making tough financial decisions in the face of so much uncertainty.
It certainly made sense, then, for the IRS to make the announcement back in March that it was extending its normal April 15 filing deadline to July 15. The logic was that Americans were in no way equipped to deal with tax returns at a time when the country was operating in crisis mode, and so granting filers an extra three months seemed like a reasonable thing to do. But while getting that extra time may have served some people well, ultimately, it may have made a lot filers' financial situations needlessly harder.
Image source: Getty Images.
Source Fool.com
