Details of Public Law 119-29, section 2 , Filing Relief for Natural Disasters Act

A qualified state declared disaster is defined as any natural catastrophe (including any hurricane, tornado, storm, high water, wind-driven water, tidal wave, tsunami, earthquake, volcanic eruption, landslide, mudslide, snowstorm, or drought), or, regardless of cause, any fire, flood, or explosion, in any part of the State, that the Governor of such State (or the Mayor in the case of the District of Columbia) determines causes damage to require a postponement of tax deadlines.

This provision allows the Secretary to postpone federal tax deadlines upon the written request of a Governor of a State (or Mayor in the case of the District of Columbia) to when there is a qualified state declared disaster. A qualified state declared disaster is defined as any natural catastrophe (including any hurricane, tornado, storm, high water, wind-driven water, tidal wave, tsunami, earthquake, volcanic eruption, landslide, mudslide, snowstorm, or drought), or, regardless of cause, any fire, flood, or explosion, in any part of the State, that the Governor of such State (or the Mayor in the case of the District of Columbia) determines causes damage to require a postponement of tax deadlines.

This provision also defines a state to include the District of Columbia, Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.

This section revises the mandatory filing deadline extension to 120 days instead of 60 days, for certain acts, such as filing a tax return, paying income tax, filing a claim for refund, or filing a petition with a Tax Court. The extension applies for qualified taxpayers affected by federally declared disasters 120 days after the later of the earliest incident or the date the declaration was issued. If there are multiple declarations issued within the 120-day period, a separate period for each declaration will be determined using the later of: 1) the earliest incident or 2) the date the declaration was issued.

California conforms by reference with modifications to IRC section 7508A, relating to postponement of certain tax-related deadlines. Under California law, the Director of Finance has the authority to determine whether a taxpayer is affected by a state of emergency, and whether state tax deadlines should be postponed due to a state of emergency. California law provides impacted taxpayers with postponement of tax-related deadlines, as prescribed by the Secretary under IRC section 7508A, an additional relief period that begins on the date the state postponement period expires, if any, and ends on the date the federal postponement period expires.

The estimated revenue impact to conform to the above federal provisions results in the following loss:

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