Businesses across Michigan and Indiana impacted by the extreme weather all of last week have earned a brief reprieve from the Internal Revenue Service thanks to the efforts of Congressman Fred Upton.
The annual postmark deadline for Michigan business owners for mailing of W-2 tax forms being sent to employees is January 31st each year. Failure to do so has typically been met with late penalties to the employer who failed to meet the deadline.
Due to the extenuating circumstances of last week’s major storm system and extreme weather that resulted in closings of all sorts of businesses, schools, organizations, and even truncated the U.S. Postal Service on a couple of days towards the end of the week last week, Upton appealed to the IRS to provide some relief, especially in light of the fact that mailing couriers and others who handle the mail had not been able to get already deposited mail to the Grand Rapids processing facility where all such mail gets postmarks and routing.
Upton called me this morning and asked to let you know that the deadline has been moved to the end of the day today. Any W-2 from mailings that are postmarked by today, Monday, February 4th, will have any potential late filing penalty waived, and not have to face those penalties.
Upton says, his office reached out to the IRS last week urging them to waive such penalties for those who were impacted by the suspension of mail service late last week.
That is a not insignificant move considering that federal penalties a year ago for those businesses who filed W-2 forms late started at $50 per return, up to a maximum of $536,000 a year.
Fred says, “Anyone who is an employer filling out those forms who thought they had until the 31st, even if they mailed it by last Thursday, would likely not have gotten the postmark, which otherwise would have triggered the penalty.”
He said he heard from many folks around the district. It largely affects smaller companies because those with 250 employees or more have been mandated to upload W-2 forms electronically, and many smaller companies have adopted that plan, too.
So…if you were unsuccessful in getting the post office to put a postmark on last week due to the storm, or ended up missing the deadline due to the weather, make sure you get to the Post Office before they close for the day today to get that postmark in place and avoid the potential penalties.
