The third installment of 2026 estimated federal income tax came due on September 15, and in 21 Indiana counties it did not have to be paid on that day. A self-employed worker, partner or S corporation shareholder in the area can make that payment, and the one that follows in January, as late as February 1, 2027 without a penalty for missing the installment dates. The Internal Revenue Service wrote that protection into its September 2 storm announcement, release IN-2026-01, which postpones estimated payments “originally due on or after Aug. 11, 2026.”
The cutoff is the original due date, not the date a payment is actually made, and that detail decides which of the year’s four installments the relief reaches.
Four installments, two of them inside the window
Estimated tax is paid in four installments. The IRS’s 2026 Form 1040-ES lists the due dates:
- 1st payment: April 15, 2026
- 2nd payment: June 15, 2026
- 3rd payment: Sept. 15, 2026
- 4th payment: Jan. 15, 2027
Measured against the August 11 line in the Indiana release, the first two installments were already past when the storms began and fall outside the postponement. The third and fourth both land on or after August 11, so both move to the same destination. A taxpayer in the covered area who has not yet made either one faces a single date, February 1, for the pair, instead of a September date that has passed and a January 15 date that is still ahead.
The August 11 cutoff sits 57 days after the June 15 installment and 35 days before the September 15 one, so for a taxpayer on the standard calendar it divides the year cleanly. The announcement itself came on September 2, 13 days before the third installment was due. The passages of the release on estimated payments say nothing about a taxpayer who paid that installment on time before the relief was announced, and they describe no refund or credit for that situation; the language is limited to postponing payments not yet made.
The penalty protection is tied to February 1
The postponement would mean little without a promise about penalties, and the release makes one in a single sentence: “Estimated income tax payments originally due on or after Aug. 11, 2026, are postponed through Feb. 1, 2027, and affected taxpayers will not be subject to penalties for failure to pay estimated tax installments as long as such payments are paid on or before Feb. 1, 2027.”
Two conditions sit inside that sentence. The first is the date of the original installment, which must be August 11 or later. The second is the payment date, which must be February 1, 2027 or earlier. A payment that slips past February 1 is no longer covered by the sentence, and the release offers no later grace period for estimated installments.
Who pays estimated tax in the first place
Estimated payments are the way income without withholding gets taxed during the year. The IRS’s estimated tax page, dated September 25, states the rule this way: “Individuals, including sole proprietors, partners, and S corporation shareholders, generally have to make estimated tax payments if they expect to owe tax of $1,000 or more when their return is filed.” The description covers the shop owner, the independent contractor and the partner in a small firm, which is why the Indiana relief lists estimated payments as their own item alongside the returns.
The page also points taxpayers to Form 1040-ES for the quarterly dates and to Form 2210 for questions about an underpayment penalty. The Indiana release does not change either form, and it does not say how the postponement is to be reflected on a Form 2210 filed with the 2026 return.
Payroll returns due November 2 move to the same date
Employers get a parallel postponement. The release states that the February 1, 2027 deadline “also applies to affected quarterly payroll and certain excise tax returns normally due on Nov. 2, 2026.” A business in the covered area that would otherwise file its quarterly payroll return at the start of November therefore has the same February date as the estimated-tax payers, although the release speaks of returns there, not of deposits or payments. An employer or sole proprietor located outside the covered area whose records are inside it is told to call the IRS Special Services line, 866-562-5227, to ask for the relief.
A business owner can be both an estimated-tax payer and an employer, and in that case three separate items share one date: the September 15 installment, the November 2 payroll return and the January 15 installment. The release lists each as its own obligation.
One boundary in the same announcement explains the August 11 qualifier on the estimated-tax sentence: payments due April 15, 2026 on 2025 returns are expressly excluded from the relief. The release itself is the controlling document. It was published September 2, 2026, cites FEMA declaration 4933-DR, and sets February 1, 2027 as the single date for estimated installments originally due on or after August 11 and for payroll returns normally due November 2.
Retirement income, taxed in a particular order
The Retirement Tax & Withdrawal Planner is written for retirees and near-retirees who draw income from IRAs, 401(k)s and Social Security and want to see how those pieces are taxed together. It is a separate paid product with no connection to the Indiana relief, it is not from the IRS, and it files nothing.
The Retirement Tax & Withdrawal Planner contains four calculators (provisional income, IRMAA tier, RMD schedule and Roth bracket fill) and the account withdrawal order, laid out for working through a year of retirement income on paper.
Open the RMD schedule and Roth bracket fill calculators in The Retirement Tax & Withdrawal Planner →
This article was drafted with AI assistance and reviewed by a human editor; its dates and quotations were checked against the IRS release, Form 1040-ES and the IRS estimated tax page linked above.
