The IRS has given victims of the Northern California wildfires who are on a filing extension until January 31, 2018, to file their returns. (IR-2017-172) California automatically conforms to federal postponement periods for any presidentially declared disasters, and the FTB confirmed that today. (R&TC §18572)

Relief is available to:

Taxpayers located in the counties declared a presidential disaster area (Butte, Lake, Mendocino, Napa, Nevada, Sonoma, and Yuba);
Firefighters and relief workers providing help in these disaster areas; and
Taxpayers whose tax preparers are located in these disaster areas.

For federal returns, taxpayers who have an address of record with the IRS in a disaster area qualify for automatic relief. Other qualifying taxpayers must contact the IRS at (866) 562-5227 to obtain the relief. For California returns, call the FTB Tax Practitioner Hotline at (916) 845-7057.

The January 31, 2018, extension relief applies to various tax filing and payment deadlines that occurred starting on October 8, 2017, including the October 31 deadline for quarterly payroll and excise tax returns.

The IRS is also waiving late deposit-penalties for federal payroll and excise tax deposits normally due after October 8 and before October 23 if the deposits are made by October 23.

Note: This relief only applies to victims of the Northern California fires. Orange County fire victims unable to timely file will have to request reasonable cause penalty abatement if they are unable to timely file their returns.

Source: Spidell