Individuals and businesses connected to the Fort Peck Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes in northeastern Montana have less than two weeks left on a tax deadline most of the country has never heard of. The Internal Revenue Service postponed a range of federal filing and payment deadlines for the area after a severe winter storm and straight-line winds struck on Dec. 17 and 18, 2025, and that extended window closes Sept. 28, 2026. Anyone in the covered area who has not yet filed a return or made an estimated payment that would otherwise have come due earlier this year still has time, but not much of it.
What triggered the relief and who it covers
The relief follows a Federal Emergency Management Agency disaster declaration, designated 4914-DR, covering the Fort Peck Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes area. Individuals who live there and businesses, including tax-exempt organizations, whose principal place of business sits inside the covered area qualify automatically — the IRS identifies affected addresses on its own and applies the postponement without a separate application. Relief workers assisting in the area, and visitors injured or killed by the storm, are also covered.
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Which deadlines actually move to Sept. 28
The postponement reaches most federal returns with an original or extended due date falling on or after Dec. 17, 2025, and before Sept. 28, 2026, including individual, corporate, estate and trust income tax returns; partnership, S corporation and trust returns; estate, gift and generation-skipping transfer tax returns; annual information returns for tax-exempt organizations; and employment and certain excise tax returns. Estimated income tax payments that would otherwise have been due during that window are postponed as well, and no penalty applies for missed estimated installments as long as the payment is made by Sept. 28. Quarterly payroll and certain excise tax returns normally due Jan. 31, April 30 and July 31 fall under the same extension, and penalties on payroll and excise tax deposits due between Dec. 17, 2025, and Jan. 1, 2026, are abated as long as the deposits were made by Jan. 2, 2026.
The extra six months for a casualty-loss election
Taxpayers in the covered area also get additional time to decide how to claim a disaster-related casualty loss: the election can apply the loss to the return for the year the storm happened or the prior year, and the taxpayer has up to six months past the disaster-year return’s regular due date — without counting any filing extension — to make that choice, which for individual filers works out to Oct. 15, 2026. Anyone claiming the loss is instructed to write the FEMA declaration number, 4914-DR, on the return, and the same number unlocks a fee waiver on requests for copies of previously filed returns using Form 4506 or Form 4506-T.
The relief also touches retirement savings directly. Affected taxpayers who participate in a workplace retirement plan or an IRA may qualify for a special disaster distribution that avoids the usual 10 percent early-withdrawal penalty and can be spread into taxable income over three years rather than all at once, under rules tied to Form 8915-F. Each plan sets its own procedures for approving that kind of hardship withdrawal, so a participant still has to check with the plan administrator directly rather than assuming the option applies automatically. Separately, disaster relief payments a taxpayer receives from a government agency for reasonable living expenses, or for repairing or replacing a home and its contents, are generally excluded from gross income entirely under existing law, meaning that assistance does not have to be reported even though it covers some of the same costs the postponed deadlines are meant to ease.
What taxpayers outside the covered area still need to do
Relief is not automatic for everyone with a stake in the affected area. A taxpayer living outside the covered zone but whose necessary records are held there — by an accountant or a business partner inside the disaster area, for instance — has to call the IRS Special Services Hotline at 866-562-5227 to request the postponement rather than waiting for it to apply on its own. Tax practitioners holding records for ten or more clients in that position can use the agency’s bulk-request procedure instead of calling for each one individually. A taxpayer who receives a late-filing or late-payment penalty notice despite qualifying for the postponement is directed to call the number printed on that notice so the IRS can abate the penalty directly, rather than assuming the notice was sent in error and setting it aside. Separately, the recently enacted Disaster Related Extension of Deadlines Act, H.R. 1491, now treats this kind of postponement as an extension when the IRS calculates the deadline for claiming a refund or credit — a change that gives affected taxpayers more room to recover money even after Sept. 28 has passed.
What the postponement does and does not cover
A postponed deadline changes when a return or payment is due, but a taxpayer who is already waiting on a refund, resolving a rejected filing, or responding to an IRS notice tied to the disaster still has to work through the ordinary process step by step once the extra weeks run out.
It is a 13-page kit covering a notice decoder and the refund-trace steps (Form 3911).
See the notice-decoding and refund-tracking steps in The IRS Refund Recovery Kit.
This article was researched and drafted with the help of AI and reviewed by The Financial Wire editorial team before publication.
David M. Keller is a finance writer based in Columbus, Ohio, covering personal finance and consumer-focused economic topics. He earned his degree in journalism from Ohio University and began his career reporting on local business and economic trends for a regional media outlet. Since then, he has contributed to a variety of online publications, focusing on clear, practical coverage of topics such as cost of living, debt, and everyday financial decision-making.
