After a 32-day exten­sion of the indi­vid­ual income tax fil­ing dead­line, tax day is upon those who have yet to file.

The IRS tax pay­ment and fil­ing dead­line was extend­ed to May 17, from its typ­i­cal April 15 dead­line with­out penal­ties and inter­est, regard­less of the amount owed. The mea­sure was tak­en to help Amer­i­cans and tax pay­ers nav­i­gate the COVID-19 pandemic.

“This con­tin­ues to be a tough time for many peo­ple, and the IRS wants to con­tin­ue to do every­thing pos­si­ble to help tax­pay­ers nav­i­gate the unusu­al cir­cum­stances relat­ed to the pan­dem­ic, while also work­ing on impor­tant tax admin­is­tra­tion respon­si­bil­i­ties,” said IRS Com­mis­sion­er Chuck Ret­tig in a March 17 announce­ment of the extension.

Punc­tu­al fam­i­lies fil­ing by the May 17 dead­line are eli­gi­ble to receive expand­ed ben­e­fits with pas­sage of the Amer­i­can Res­cue Plan in March. The expand­ed child tax cred­it will begin dis­burse­ments of $250 to $300 per child each month, total­ing $3,000 to $3,600 start­ing on July 1, accord­ing to the non­prof­it Human­i­ty Forward.

“To deter­mine how much mon­ey you’ll be receiv­ing, the IRS needs to con­firm your 2020 income,” said Greg Nasif, polit­i­cal direc­tor of Human­i­ty For­ward, in a news release. “If peo­ple don’t file before the dead­line, they could end up receiv­ing less than what they’re owed.”

Peo­ple who typ­i­cal­ly do not earn above the required thresh­old for fil­ing are eli­gi­ble for the expand­ed child tax cred­it — but only if they file this year.

“Folks who typ­i­cal­ly don’t have to file their tax­es are the ones who stand the most to ben­e­fit from the Child Tax Cred­it, said Nasif, refer­ring to the mil­lions of Amer­i­cans who are below the $12,200 income thresh­old. “But they need to let the IRS know about their eli­gi­bil­i­ty by fil­ing this year.”

Indi­vid­ual Col­orado tax­pay­ers, both state and fed­er­al, who need addi­tion­al time to file beyond the May 17 dead­line can be grant­ed a fil­ing exten­sion until Oct. 15, but that does not grant an exten­sion of time to pay tax­es due. Indi­vid­ual tax­pay­ers should pay their income tax due by May 17 to avoid inter­est and penal­ties. Tax­pay­ers can file IRS Form 4868 through their tax pro­fes­sion­al, tax soft­ware or using the Free File link on IRS.gov. and state tax fil­ing can be extend­ed through e‑File. If you expect to get a refund this year but do not make the fil­ing dead­line, accord­ing to the Col­orado Depart­ment of Rev­enue, you can still file your state income tax on or before Octo­ber 15.

The IRS is tak­ing steps to auto­mat­i­cal­ly refund mon­ey this spring and sum­mer to peo­ple who filed their tax return report­ing unem­ploy­ment com­pen­sa­tion before changes made by the Amer­i­can Res­cue Plan. Accord­ing to the U.S. Depart­ment of Labor, Office of Employ­ment and Train­ing, over 23 mil­lion U.S. work­ers nation­wide filed for unem­ploy­ment last year. For the first time, some self-employed work­ers qual­i­fied for unem­ployed ben­e­fits as well.

Saman­tha Galvin, an asso­ciate pro­fes­sor of the prac­tice of tax­a­tion with the Uni­ver­si­ty of Den­ver Sturm Col­lege of Law, said the tax exten­sion was a need­ed relief.

“The gov­ern­ment was try­ing to be sen­si­tive of people’s sit­u­a­tions, real­iz­ing that every­one has had a rough year, that it might take them longer to get orga­nized and get their paper­work in order,” Galvin said. “All those types of things.”

Galvin is also assis­tant direc­tor of the college’s Low Income Tax­pay­er Clin­ic. “We always have com­plex cas­es,” she said of the clin­ic. “They don’t nec­es­sar­i­ly involve this cur­rent year’s issues.”

In regard to indi­vid­ual tax­pay­ers, in gen­er­al, Galvin said: “Peo­ple who are due refunds usu­al­ly file ear­ly and peo­ple who owe wait for later.”

This year, like last year, vol­un­teer and pro­fes­sion­al work­ers who pre­pare tax­es were lim­it­ed because of the pan­dem­ic. Many clients had to wait and typ­i­cal past walk in ser­vices, pri­or to the pan­dem­ic, were now by appoint­ment only.

This year’s exten­sion, like last year’s, “helped some peo­ple fig­ure out what their finan­cial sit­u­a­tion was look­ing like,” she said. “Ear­ly on it seemed like peo­ple were strug­gling to get appointments.”