A Washington taxpayer’s first question after the IRS postponed deadlines to February 1, 2027, is where the agency has the address on file. Taxpayers in Chelan, Ferry, Okanogan, Spokane, Stevens and Yakima counties, the six Washington counties hit by wildfires that began July 31, get the later date without filing anything. Others have to call.
Six counties and three tribal nations, no form required
The IRS announced the relief on August 31 in release WA-2026-03, tied to FEMA emergency declaration 3650-EM. The IRS release lists the six counties and three tribal nations: the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation, the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation and the Spokane Tribe of Indians.
Inside that area, the IRS says it automatically identifies taxpayers located there and applies the filing and payment relief. Individuals who live in the area qualify, and so do businesses and tax-exempt organizations whose principal place of business is there. Nothing in the release asks for an application.
That covers returns with an original or extended due date before February 1, 2027. A person with a valid extension on a 2025 individual return now has until that date. Estimated income tax payments originally due on or after July 31, 2026, also move, and no failure-to-pay estimated tax penalty applies if they are made by February 1.
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Taxpayers outside the fire zone who still have to call
The automatic rule stops at the county line, and the release names a group on the other side of it. Taxpayers who live or run a business outside the covered area, but whose records needed to meet a deadline are inside it, must call the IRS Special Services line at 866-562-5227.
Tax practitioners are treated the same way. A preparer in the covered area who has clients elsewhere can contact Special Services for them, and a preparer holding records for 10 or more clients is pointed to the IRS guidance on bulk requests from practitioners for disaster relief.
Two more groups qualify under the release: relief workers affiliated with a recognized government or philanthropic organization, and people visiting the covered area who were killed or injured in the disaster.
One payment date the postponement leaves behind
Payments for 2025 returns were due April 15, 2026, before the fires began, and the IRS says they are not eligible for this relief. The extension to February 1 helps with filing a 2025 return on extension, not with paying the balance owed on it. A separate release for Mississippi uses the same February 1 date and carries the same payment limit.
Quarterly payroll and certain excise returns that come due July 31 and November 2, 2026, are postponed. Information returns in the W-2, 1094, 1095, 1097, 1098 and 1099 series are not, nor are Forms 1042-S, 3921, 3922 and 8027. Employment and excise tax deposits are left out too, unless a specific rule lists them.
For deposits, the IRS will abate penalties on payroll and excise deposits due from July 31 through August 16, 2026, if the deposits were made by August 17. That window has closed, so it matters only for employers who made a late deposit and later receive a penalty notice.
Penalty notices, payment plans and fire losses
A taxpayer who gets a late-filing or late-payment penalty notice with a due date inside the postponement period should call the number printed on the notice and ask for abatement. People who do not qualify for disaster relief can still request abatement for reasonable cause, the IRS says.
Installment agreements get their own rule. Missed payments on a payment plan during the postponement period will not put it in default, but interest and late-payment penalties keep accruing. Reminder notices and direct debits continue, and stopping a direct debit means contacting the IRS or the bank.
Taxpayers with fire losses can deduct uninsured personal property losses on the return for the disaster year or the prior year, using Form 4684 and Publication 547, and should write 3650-EM on the return. Fees for copies of prior returns are waived when 3650-EM is written at the top of Form 4506 or 4506-T.
Qualified disaster relief payments are generally excluded from income. Eligible taxpayers can also take a special disaster distribution from a retirement plan or IRA without the 10 percent early-withdrawal tax and spread the income over three years on Form 8915-F. Hardship withdrawals may also be possible under each plan’s rules, according to the IRS newsroom announcement.
IRS Free File guided software is available at no cost to taxpayers with 2025 adjusted gross income of $89,000 or less. Free File Fillable Forms has no income limit, and MilTax serves military members and some veterans. These are the routes for anyone in the six counties who has been waiting on a 2025 return.
Free help exists for people filing late: VITA and Tax Counseling for the Elderly sites at 800-906-9887, though VITA sites normally cannot help claim disaster losses, and AARP Tax-Aide at 888-227-7669. The remaining question is whether the address the IRS holds for a taxpayer actually falls inside one of those six counties.
Does the address on file sit in a covered county?
Relief reaches taxpayers in the six counties automatically, but a penalty letter dated inside the postponement period still has to be answered by phone, and 2025 payments due April 15, 2026, stay outside the relief. February 1, 2027, is a hard date for everything it does cover.
The IRS Refund Recovery Kit includes a notice decoder for reading IRS letters and a refund status tracker spreadsheet for logging each date and response. Its Part 4, “Why It Stalled: The Notice Decoder,” is built for the letter that does not make sense.
Get the notice decoder for a postponement-period penalty letter in the refund kit →
More Financial Reading
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- 15 Places to Find Your Share of the $4.25 Billion States Give Back
- 17 Medicare Money Moves Now That Part D Caps at $2,400
This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.
