Individuals and businesses in nine Nebraska counties have until February 1, 2027, to file various federal tax returns and pay what they owe after storms that began May 15, 2026. The IRS named Buffalo, Fillmore, Gage, Jefferson, Nemaha, Richardson, Thayer, Thurston and Howard counties in its August 25 announcement. Extended 2025 returns move to the same date for filing, but the payment that was due April 15 does not.
Nine counties, one May 15 starting line
The IRS tracks the disaster as NE-2026-05 under declaration number SD-0012-DR, and its August 25 release says the severe storms began on May 15, 2026. That date decides what moves. The affected counties are Buffalo, Fillmore, Gage, Jefferson, Nemaha, Richardson, Thayer, Thurston and Howard.
The new date reaches most federal returns and payments that had original or extended due dates before February 1, 2027. Individual and business filers sit under the same notice, so a household with a Form 1040 and a company with a quarterly return are both inside the window if they are located in one of the nine counties.
Anyone in those counties with a return unfiled or a balance unpaid that came due on or after May 15 should now treat February 1, 2027, as the working deadline. That includes 2025 returns on extension and estimated tax installments due after the storms. The first thing to settle is whether a specific return or payment falls inside that window.
Retirement deadlines, in your inbox: Miss an enrollment or claim deadline and the money can be gone. The Retirement Money Brief keeps you ahead of the ones that matter, every weekday.
Get the Retirement Money Brief →
We may earn a commission from links on this page.
What moves to February 1, and what the IRS leaves alone
Estimated tax installments due on or after May 15, 2026, also move to February 1, 2027. The IRS says affected taxpayers owe no failure-to-pay penalty on those installments if they pay by that date. For anyone who pays quarterly, that pushes back every installment that falls between the storms and the new deadline.
Employers get more time on paperwork. Quarterly payroll returns and certain excise tax returns normally due July 31, 2026, and November 2, 2026, move to February 1, 2027 as well. The IRS adds that other time-sensitive acts due between May 15, 2026, and February 1, 2027, are postponed under Treasury Regulation 301.7508A-1 and Revenue Procedure 2018-58.
The notice treats payroll and excise tax deposits separately. Penalties on deposits due from May 15 through June 1, 2026, are abated if the deposit was made by June 1. That relief is tied to the June 1 deposit date, so it helps only employers who deposited within that short stretch.
Extended 2025 returns: a new filing date, but no new payment date
Taxpayers who asked for an extension on a 2025 return had an extended filing date of October 15, 2026, which has now passed. Because that date falls before February 1, 2027, the postponement carries the filing deadline for people in the nine counties to February 1. The return can still go in without a late-filing problem.
The payment is a different matter. Tax for 2025 was due April 15, 2026, whether or not an extension was filed, and that date came a month before the storms. The IRS says those payments are not eligible for this relief, so an unpaid April balance does not get the February 1 treatment.
That split matters most to people who filed an extension and paid little or nothing in April, planning to settle up with the return. Filing by February 1 is protected. The balance owed since April 15 is not, and nothing in the release moves it.
Filers who paid their expected 2025 tax by April 15 are in the simplest spot. For them, February 1, 2027, is only the new outer date to file the extended return, and the notice asks nothing else of them.
Copies of old returns, disaster distributions and penalty notices
People who lost records in the storms can order copies of earlier returns without the usual charge. The IRS says to write the declaration number SD-0012-DR in bold at the top of Form 4506 or Form 4506-T, and it will waive the fee.
Retirement savers have another option. The release says participants in retirement plans may qualify for special disaster distributions, which are reported on Form 8915-F. It also says qualified disaster relief payments are generally excluded from gross income.
A late-filing or late-payment penalty notice with a due date inside the postponement period has its own route. The IRS says to call the telephone number printed on the notice. Taxpayers who do not qualify for disaster relief can still ask for reasonable-cause penalty abatement.
Other counties can be added to a disaster later, and the IRS keeps the current list on its tax relief in disaster situations page. That page also carries the two other Nebraska notices dated August 25, one for May wildfires and one for June wildfires. Each has its own incident date, which is why the right notice matters.
Is the April balance on an extended 2025 return still unpaid?
That balance is the one piece the February 1 date leaves out.
An extended 2025 return from the nine counties can be filed by February 1, 2027, but the tax due April 15, 2026 still sits outside the relief. Treating the new date as covering both is the expensive misreading.
The IRS Refund Recovery Kit includes a notice decoder for the letters that follow and a refund status tracker spreadsheet. Part 4, Why It Stalled: The Notice Decoder, explains what common IRS notices mean; the kit is about reading what the IRS sends next, not about the storm relief itself.
Decode the next IRS letter about a Nebraska storm balance with this notice kit →
More Financial Reading
- 21 Ways to Stretch a $2,087 Social Security Check
- 15 Places to Find Your Share of the $4.25 Billion States Give Back
- The New $6,000 Senior Deduction and 14 More Tax Moves for Retirees
This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.
