The state this week extended California’s income tax filing and payment due date to October 16 for individuals and businesses impacted by storms in December and January. This aligns California with the federal extension announced by the IRS.
The extension is on top of the tax relief announced in January that extended certain filing deadlines and gave storm-impacted Californians the ability to claim a deduction for disaster losses.
The relief announced this week applies to deadlines falling on or after January 8, 2023, and before October 16, 2023, including the 2022 individual income tax returns due April 18 and the quarterly estimated tax payments, typically due January 17 and April 18. Those payments previously were extended to May 15 for those impacted by winter storms.
San Francisco Chronicle columnist Kathleen Pender noted that postponing the tax deadline until October “will push tens of billions of dollars from the 2022-23 fiscal year, which ends June 30, into 2023-24,” so lawmakers will have less certainty about revenue when they are crafting the budget that must be approved by June 15.
“The personal income tax makes up about 61 percent of state general fund revenues,” Pender noted. “This includes taxes from individuals and from sole proprietorships, partnerships, S corporations and limited liability companies that file business income on personal tax returns. About 70 percent of personal income taxes arrive year-round via payroll withholding and will be unaffected by a deadline change.”
While the main budget bill must be approved by the Legislature before the June deadline, lawmakers and the governor can amend the budget at any time during the year.
Additional information and instructions are available in FTB Publication 1034, 2022 Disaster Loss: How to Claim a State Tax Deduction.
Disaster victims can receive free copies of their state returns to replace those lost or damaged. To do so, they should use form FTB 3516 and write the name of the disaster in blue or black ink at the top of the request.
For a complete list of all disasters declared in California, see the chart on FTB’s disaster loss webpage.