how to input reduce penalties for taxpayers located in disaster area

Forum|Forum|4 months ago
February 5, 2026
2 replies
23 views

Clients are located in LA wild fire disaster area. Supposedly, all 1st, 2nd, and 3rd 2025 estimated taxes were due 10/15/2025.

Although they made each 1040ES on normal due dates (4/15, 6/15, and 9/15). They still have underpayment penalties due to less income taxes withheld in 2025. When calculate penalties, Lacerte calculated them using 4/15, 6/15, 9/15 due dates instead of 10/15/2025 for these 3 quarters.

How can I override tax due dates? Or, should we forgo penalty calculation in the tax return and let IRS bill clients later?

Thanks.

Lacerte Tax

Best answer by abctax55

1) Enter them as if paid on time to 'fool' the system.

2) "Annualize" to make the penalty go away, i.e fake it.

3) Suppress & wait for the IRS to ask - altho they are supposed to 'know' based on the ZIP Code.

Be sure to warn the client that there might be nastygrams from the government to get it all eventually straightened out.

rbynaker

Level 13

My general inclination would be to suppress the penalty and let the IRS figure it out.

If you enter all of the ES payments made by 10/15/25 as made on 4/15/25 do you still get a penalty? That will likely be more in line with what to expect from the IRS.