IRS offers extra tax-filing relief for partnerships

The Internal Revenue Service released revised guidance Thursday extending its relief for certain partnerships, real estate mortgage investment conduits, and other organizations that didn’t file the necessary returns by the new due date for tax years beginning in 2016.

A 2015 bill, the Surface Transportation Act, changed the date by which a partnership, REMIC or other entity needs to file its annual tax return. For calendar year filers, the due date for filing the annual return or ask for for an extension changed from April 15 (April 18 in 2017) to March 15.

The IRS acknowledged that many entities filed their returns or their extension request for tax year 2016 by the April deadline, and if not for the Surface Transportation Act, these returns and requests for extension of time to file would have been on time.

An earlier notice issued by the IRS this year, Notice 2017-47, offered relief from the penalty for failure to timely file for partnerships and REMICs that filed by the date that would have been timely prior to amendment by the Surface Transportation Act.

The new notice released Thursday, Notice 2017-71, amplifies, clarifies, and supersedes the old notice by specifying that additional acts, such as the making of various elections, of partnerships, REMICs, and certain other entities made by the date that would have been timely prior to amendment by the Surface Transportation Act will be treated as timely. An earlier release of Notice 2017-71 supplied this relief only to taxpayers whose taxable years began and ended last year, but Thursday’s revised guidance also applies to fiscal-year filers whose taxable years began in 2016 but didn’t end until this year.

Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg