Taxpayers hit by this summer’s storms and wildfires in four states now have until February 1, 2027 to file returns and make payments that would otherwise have fallen due in the months after each disaster began. The Internal Revenue Service lists Indiana, Nebraska, Washington and West Virginia among the disaster areas postponed to that date, and the relief is applied automatically to people and businesses located in the covered counties.
The money consequence is concrete: a federal return, an estimated payment or a quarterly payroll filing that would normally trigger interest and late penalties in the fall can wait four months or more, provided it falls inside the window each IRS announcement sets. The scope differs by state, though, and the details sit in four separate releases rather than one.
Washington wildfires: six counties and three tribal areas
Washington appears on the index of IRS disaster postponements, which the agency last updated on September 16, 2026, as a wildfire entry. Its release, WA-2026-03, dated August 31, covers wildfires that began July 31, 2026 under FEMA emergency declaration 3650-EM. The listed counties are Chelan, Ferry, Okanogan, Spokane, Stevens and Yakima, along with the Yakama Nation, the Colville Reservation and the Spokane Tribe of Indians.
Anything originally due between July 31, 2026 and February 1, 2027 moves to February 1. The release names individual, corporate, estate and trust income tax returns, partnership and S corporation returns, and employment and certain excise tax returns, plus the quarterly payroll returns normally due July 31 and November 2, 2026. A separate index entry, WA-2026-02, covers a Douglas County wildfire and carries the same February 1 date.
Which taxpayers in these areas need to do something now
For anyone with an address in a covered county, the first job is simply to confirm the area and the date. The IRS says it automatically identifies taxpayers located in the covered disaster area and applies the relief without a request. People who live outside the zone but keep records inside it, or a practitioner with ten or more affected clients, are told to call the agency’s disaster line at 866-562-5227.
Disaster postponements keep arriving in batches, each with its own start date and end date, and the deadline brief tracks those dates and deadlines as they change.
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Indiana’s 21 counties and FEMA declaration 4933-DR
Indiana’s release, IN-2026-01 of September 2, covers severe storms, straight-line winds, tornadoes and flooding that began August 11, 2026. The relief window runs from August 11, 2026 through February 1, 2027 for the 21 counties named: Carroll, Dearborn, Decatur, Delaware, Fayette, Franklin, Hamilton, Hancock, Henry, Lake, LaPorte, Madison, Marion, Morgan, Porter, Pulaski, Randolph, Rush, Tipton, Union and Wayne.
Marion and Hamilton counties are in the list, so the postponement reaches much of the Indianapolis area. The release also sets a narrower penalty rule: penalties on payroll and excise tax deposits due on or after August 11 and before August 26, 2026 are abated if the deposits were made by August 26. Information returns such as the W-2 and the 1099 series are excluded from the postponement.
West Virginia’s four counties and declaration 4932-DR
The IRS’s West Virginia release, WV-2026-01, was issued August 7 and updated on August 11 and August 21. It covers severe storms, straight-line winds, tornadoes, flooding, landslides and mudslides beginning July 21, 2026 under FEMA declaration 4932-DR. The counties listed are Lewis, Pleasants, Ritchie and Upshur.
Payroll and excise tax deposit penalties were abated for deposits due from July 21 to before August 5, 2026, if made by August 5. The August 21 update adds that the February 1, 2027 date applies to quarterly payroll deadlines originally due July 31 and November 2, 2026, so employers in those four counties should read that note against their own filing calendar.
Nebraska’s June wildfires and the Sioux County declaration
Nebraska has five separate postponement releases on the IRS index, NE-2026-03 through NE-2026-07, covering wildfires and storms from March through June. The latest, NE-2026-07 of August 25, covers wildfires that began June 9, 2026 and names Sioux County under disaster number SD-0014-DR. Anything due from June 9, 2026 through February 1, 2027 moves to February 1, and the IRS says more counties can be added later.
Anyone in the area who needs a copy of a previously filed return can have the usual fee waived by writing the declaration number in bold at the top of Form 4506 or Form 4506-T. The earlier Nebraska releases carry the same February 1 date but different start dates, so a filer outside Sioux County should check which of the five covers a specific county.
Casualty losses and what the postponement leaves out
The postponement is a filing and payment delay, not a tax cut. The Washington and West Virginia releases say a casualty loss can be claimed on either the disaster-year return or the prior-year return, with the FEMA declaration number written on the return and Form 4684 and Publication 547 as the references. The Washington release also excludes 2025 individual income tax payments that were due April 15, 2026.
Other jurisdictions sit in the same group on the index, including Hawaii County, the Oglala Sioux Tribe in South Dakota, the Northern Mariana Islands for Super Typhoon Bavi, and Mississippi for Tropical Storm Arthur. Those entries have their own release numbers and incident dates.
Checking your county and date on the IRS disaster index
The free official route is the IRS’s tax relief in disaster situations page. Find the state, open the release that matches the disaster, and read the county list and the original-due-date range before assuming a deadline moved.
Gather the return type, the original due date and the address where the taxpayer lived or the business operated on the incident date. The date range matters: for Indiana the relief window starts August 11, for West Virginia July 21, for Washington July 31 and for the Sioux County fire June 9. A deadline that fell before its start date is not covered.
The trap is the exclusion list. Information returns and employment or excise tax deposits are generally outside the postponement, apart from the narrow penalty abatements each release spells out. The date that anchors everything is the one the IRS repeats in every release: February 1, 2027.
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This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by The Financial Wire’s editorial team.
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.
