CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Tax Day is coming later this year in the coronavirus pandemic.
The deadline to file 2019 income tax returns for individuals, trusts or estates and corporations arrives on Wednesday after being extended from the traditional April 15 to July 15 earlier this year.
Kimberly Canterbury, program director for the Earned Income Tax Credit with the West Virginia Alliance for Sustainable Families, said she was not seeing a last-minute rush of tax filings statewide on Tuesday.
“People found a way with the stimulus (payments) to get their taxes done,” Canterbury told MetroNews.
Usually, more than 100 Volunteer Income Tax Assistance, or VITA, sites are available to taxpayers for free filings with volunteer, IRS-certified help across the Mountain State.
This year, Canterbury said in-person VITA sites were limited to two because of COVID-19 shutdowns: Kemba Charleston Federal Credit Union in Kanawha County where drive-thru banking lanes were used for tax filings along with a Monroe County location in Union.
Canterbury also processed about 100 tax returns submitted during appointments through a WVASF pilot program in Clarksburg and Weston.
“That was a unique thing that came out of this crisis was that we still wanted to be able to serve the population that needed their taxes prepared, but safely,” said Canterbury.
She said the goal was to build on remote services in the coming years.
“We have big plans for next year using the creativity that we’ve learned from this pandemic to be able to serve more taxpayers next tax season.”
For late filers, free assistance was still available online through Wednesday with no income requirements via www.myfreetaxes.com.
Those with the West Virginia State Tax Department were meeting with taxpayers with questions by appointment only at regional offices in Beckley, Charleston, Clarksburg, Martinsburg, Parkersburg and Wheeling.
Tax filing extensions were an option. However, payment deadlines for those returns remained on Wednesday.