The coronavirus, also known as COVID-19, seems likes it’s even going to affect tax season, possibly to the delight of some and the chagrin of the IRS.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday that Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said the Trump administration is planning to delay the April 15th tax deadline for “most individual taxpayers as well as small businesses as part of an effort to mitigate the effects of the spread of the novel coronavirus.”
“For small and medium sized businesses, for hardworking individuals, we are going to recommend to the president that we allow the delay and that they don’t have to pay an interest or penalty on that,” Mnuchin said on Capitol Hill. “That will have the impact of putting over $200 billion back into the economy, and that will create a very big stimulus.”
Mnuchin also made a point of saying that the “super rich” would basically be the only people not benefitting from the delay.
The news of a possible tax deadline push comes on the same day that the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 as a “pandemic,” as well as the announcement that the U.S. has now reached 1,000 reported cases of the disease.