Jonesboro, AR — (JonesboroRightNow.com) — April 14, 2025 — The Internal Revenue Service on Monday announced tax relief for individuals and businesses in the entire state of Arkansas affected by severe storms, tornadoes and flooding that began on April 2, 2025.

These taxpayers, including Form 1040 filers, now have until Nov. 3, 2025, to file various federal individual and business tax returns and make tax payments.

The IRS is offering relief to any area designated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). This means that individuals and households that reside or have a business in any of Arkansas’s 75 counties qualify for tax relief. The current list of eligible localities is always available on the Tax relief in disaster situations page on IRS.gov.

This means, for example, that the Nov. 3, 2025, deadline will now apply to:

  • Individual income tax returns and payments normally due on April 15, 2025.
  • 2024 contributions to IRAs and health savings accounts for eligible taxpayers.
  • Quarterly estimated tax payments normally due on April 15, June 16 and Sept. 15, 2025.
  • Quarterly payroll and excise tax returns normally due on April 30, July 31 and Oct. 31, 2025.
  • Calendar-year corporation and fiduciary returns and payments normally due on April 15, 2025.
  • Calendar-year tax-exempt organization returns normally due on May 15, 2025.

In addition, penalties for failing to make payroll and excise tax deposits due on or after April 2, 2025, and before April 17, 2025, will be abated if the deposits are made by April 17, 2025.

In addition, Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders extended the tax filing deadlines for 2024 from April 15, 2025, to July 31, 2025, for those citizens who reside or whose businesses are located in the affected counties in an executive order on Saturday. Craighead County is among those listed in the order.

Additional tax relief:

Individuals and businesses in a federally declared disaster area who suffered uninsured or unreimbursed disaster-related losses can choose to claim them on either the return for the year the loss occurred (in this instance, the 2025 return normally filed next year), or the return for the prior year (2024). Taxpayers have extra time – up to six months after the due date of the taxpayer’s federal income tax return for the disaster year (without regard to any extension of time to file) – to make the election. For individual taxpayers, this means Oct. 15, 2026. Be sure to write the FEMA declaration number – 3627-EM − on any return claiming a loss. See Publication 547, Casualties, Disasters and Thefts, for details.

Qualified disaster relief payments are generally excluded from gross income. In general, this means that affected taxpayers can exclude from their gross income amounts received from a government agency for reasonable and necessary personal, family, living or funeral expenses, as well as for the repair or rehabilitation of their home, or for the repair or replacement of its contents. See Publication 525, Taxable and Nontaxable Income, for details.

Additional relief may be available to affected taxpayers who participate in a retirement plan or individual retirement arrangement (IRA). For example, a taxpayer may be eligible to take a special disaster distribution that would not be subject to the additional 10% early distribution tax and allows the taxpayer to spread the income over three years. Taxpayers may also be eligible to make a hardship withdrawal. Each plan or IRA has specific rules and guidance for their participants to follow.

The IRS may provide additional disaster relief in the future.

Taxpayers who do not qualify for disaster tax relief may qualify for reasonable cause penalty abatement. See Penalty relief for reasonable cause for additional information.

The tax relief is part of a coordinated federal response to the damage caused by these storms and is based on local damage assessments by FEMA. For information on disaster recovery, visit DisasterAssistance.gov.