Natural Disasters: Recovering from disasters

December 31, 2024

No place in the world is disaster proof. Mother Nature unleashes her horrors globally and year-round via hurricanes, tornadoes, wild fires, floods, blizzards and more.

This special Natural Disasters Recovery Page, part of the overall Storm Warnings collection of Don’t Mess With Taxes blog posts about disasters and the associated tax implications, provides information on what you can do and where you can get help to recover as quickly as possible when Mother Nature turns into Mommy Dearest.

Storm-Warning-Severe-Weather-Warning

So, since time is of the essence when you’re trying to get your life back after a natural disaster, here are some posts to with ways to recover from the various natural disasters that many of us will face at some point in our lives.

Recovery

The Internal Revenue Service isn’t at the top of anyone’s list, especially when they’re trying to deal with a major disaster.

But in such dire situations, you should think about the tax agency. When you sustain any damage from a storm, remember that you might be able to get some disaster relief from the IRS.

You’ll have to itemize your deductions and in addition to the Schedule A, there’s more paperwork deal with, specifically Form 4684, Casualties and Thefts.

And the amount of your damages isn’t the amount you can claim. You’ll have to work through a worksheet to determine how much your loss you can claim.

But when you’ve suffered serious damages, any amount is welcome.

There’s also a possibility that you could get special tax treatment if your damages were caused by a major disaster. W(March 4, 2019)hen this designation is issue by the president via the Federal Emergency Management Agency, you get a choice as to when to make your tax claims.

You can opt to claim your disaster losses on your current year’s tax return, the year in which the disaster occurred.

Or you can file and amended return from your previous year’s taxes. This which might get you more money, and sooner, from the IRS.

The tax date choice is yours. Always run the numbers to see which tax year filing will get you the most tax money.

Don’t forget about your state taxes. In many disaster instances, states also offer special tax and other relief. You state’s tax departments can provide the relevant disaster information.

These Don’t Mess With Taxes posts, the dates published are noted in parentheses with newer ones listed first, have more details:

Looking for more or other disaster info? Check out the the separate Storm Warning pages pages on preparing for a disaster, how to donate to groups that help disaster survivors, general storm stories and information and additional disaster resources.

 

 

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