Indiana
Storm Relief Pushes Federal Deadlines to February 1 in 21 Indiana Counties
The IRS announced on September 2 that individuals and businesses in 21 Indiana counties hit by the severe storms, straight-line winds, tornadoes, and flooding that began August 11 now have until February 1, 2027 to file most federal returns and make most payments. That sweeps in a lot: extended 2025 individual returns otherwise due October 15, the September 15 and January 15 estimated tax installments, and quarterly payroll and excise returns due November 2. The covered counties are Carroll, Dearborn, Decatur, Delaware, Fayette, Franklin, Hamilton, Hancock, Henry, Lake, LaPorte, Madison, Marion, Morgan, Porter, Pulaski, Randolph, Rush, Tipton, Union, and Wayne — Tippecanoe is not among them, so Lafayette-area filers should still plan on September 15. Relief is applied automatically based on the address the IRS has on file; if yours is outside the disaster area but your records or your business aren’t, call the IRS Special Services line at 866-562-5227 rather than assuming you’re covered.
Source: IRS Newsroom — Indiana disaster relief
Indiana
The Gas Tax Holiday Gets Another Month
Governor Braun updated his energy emergency declaration on September 3, and the Department of Revenue now won’t collect the Gasoline Use Tax or the Gasoline Excise Tax from August 7 through October 5, 2026. For drivers this shows up indirectly — both taxes are collected upstream at the distributor level, not at the pump, so savings reach retail through the supply chain rather than as a line item on your receipt. If you’re a distributor, the part that actually requires action is your GT-103: exempt gallons for the suspension months have to be reported in the right section of the form, and getting that wrong is the kind of error that surfaces months later.
Source: Indiana DOR — Gasoline Use Tax
Security
Two Free Defenses the IRS Keeps Telling People to Turn On
The IRS and its Security Summit partners spent the week making the case for multifactor authentication and the Identity Protection PIN, and the pitch is simple: both are free and both stop the most common way a refund gets stolen. The IP PIN is a six-digit number, good for one calendar year, that has to be on your return for it to be accepted — which means a thief with your Social Security number still can’t file in your name. One wrinkle worth knowing: you have to request your own IP PIN through your IRS Online Account, because a tax professional cannot obtain one on your behalf. The related advice for anyone who hasn’t done it yet is to create that IRS account before someone else creates one using your information.
Source: IRS Newsroom (IR-2026-106)
Payroll
National Payroll Week Is a Reasonable Excuse for a Paycheck Checkup
With National Payroll Week running September 7–11, the IRS is nudging workers to run their numbers through the free Tax Withholding Estimator and file an updated Form W-4 if the result looks off. This matters most after a year with a change in it — a marriage, a new job, a new child, a spouse going back to work, or a jump in side income — because withholding set under last year’s facts quietly produces this year’s surprise. Employers got their own reminder list: deposit federal taxes electronically, file Forms 940, 941, 943, 944, and 945 on time, keep employment records at least four years, and put multifactor authentication on anything that touches payroll data. There are still three and a half months to fix a withholding problem through payroll instead of writing a check in April.
Source: IRS Newsroom (IR-2026-105)
IRS
Before the Next Storm: Put Your Records Somewhere They’ll Survive
On the heels of the Indiana declaration, the IRS issued its standard but well-timed reminder to get financial records disaster-ready. The practical version: originals like returns, birth certificates, Social Security cards, insurance policies, and property titles belong in a waterproof and fireproof container, and scanned copies belong somewhere off-site. The step people skip is documentation of what they own — a walkthrough video of the house, the shop, and the vehicles is what turns a casualty loss claim from an argument into a calculation. Publications 547 and 584 cover how those losses actually get computed, and if your records are already gone, transcripts are available through your IRS Online Account.
Source: IRS Newsroom (IR-2026-104)