On March 23, Governor Kate Brown signed Oregon Executive Order 20-12 requiring several “stay at home” provisions that will likely impact your business and ours. For more details of Executive Order No. 20-12, please click on this link.
Like many of you, Kernutt Stokes is subject to workplace restrictions imposed under this order. Furthermore, we are taking additional health and safety precautions to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus.
Virtual Office
Rest assured, we are still working and here for you. However, as of March 23, we have transitioned to a fully virtual office, which involves the following temporary changes:
- Closure of all Kernutt Stokes physical office locations
- Installation of secure “drop-box” (Eugene)
- Pending installation of secure drop-boxes (Corvallis, Bend, Lake Oswego)
- A four day quarantine of any physical documents received (via drop-box or mail)
- Suspension of all face-to face client meetings
- Suspension of physical document delivery to clients
- Electronic delivery of tax returns, financial statements, and other reports
- Electronic client signatures on client tax returns (whenever possible)
- Electronic delivery of Kernutt Stokes invoices for our individual tax clients. If you would like electronic invoices for your business, please let your client advisor know whom we should send them to.
Electronic Options
To help prevent potential virus spread, we continue to recommend sharing information using electronic options whenever possible. We are using telephone and video conferencing for virtual meetings and have suspended all face-to-face client meetings. We encourage you to send documents to us electronically through our secure file sharing platform, Sharefile, available on our website. Additionally, we urge you to take advantage of the option to receive electronic delivery and electronically sign your tax returns this year. As an added benefit, if you e-file your federal tax return, you often can begin tracking your refund as soon as 24 hours after the IRS accepts it.
Tax Deadlines
The IRS announced last week that the tax filing deadline has been moved to July 15th. Previously, the IRS had extended the payment deadline only. Now, the federal income tax filing and payment deadline alike have been extended until July 15th. Prior federal guidance also provided that the extension of the payment due date to July 15th also applies for any first quarter 2020 estimated tax payments.
The Oregon Department of Revenue previously announced that they would conform if the federal government extended the filing deadline. Thus, Oregon’s filing due date should also be July 15th. The extended filing date should also extend the time for payment of Oregon income taxes due for the 2019 tax year to July 15th. At this point it is unclear whether Oregon first quarter 2020 estimated tax payments will be granted the same extension or other penalty relief, but we expect this to be the case. As of today, we are still awaiting official legal conformity to the federal rules from the Oregon Department of Revenue, but we expect that will follow soon.
The California Franchise Tax Board has adopted a similar July 15th extension and we expect most other states will as well.
Thank you for your patience and trust in Kernutt Stokes during these challenging and difficult times. If you have any questions or further concerns, please do not hesitate to contact our office at (541) 687-1170.