National Law Review
BY Mark S. Levenson, Alan E. Sherman

Previously, we had suggested to our clients that the IRS was likely to issue extensions to deadlines for affected real estate investors engaging in Internal Revenue Code (IRC) Section 1031 like-kind exchanges in response to challenges in completing such transactions posed by the continuing COVID-19 pandemic. The anticipated relief measures were announced by the IRS on April 9, 2020 in Tax Relief Notice 2020-23, 2020-18 IRB. This notice can be found at: https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/n-20-23.pdf.

Contained in the last paragraph of Section IIIA of the Tax Relief Notice, the IRS states that taxpayers due to perform an action listed in Revenue Procedure 2018-58 between April 1, 2020 and July 15, 2020 are now categorized as “affected taxpayers” of the COVID-19 pandemic. It is this reference to Rev. Proc. 2018-58 that expands the scope of the Tax Relief Notice to IRC Section 1031 like-kind exchanges as Section 17 of Revenue Procedure 2018-58 contains the references to the 45 day Identification Period and 180 day Exchange Period timelines for successfully completing an IRC Section 1031 like-kind exchange. By virtue of receiving “affected taxpayer” status, a taxpayer whose IRC Section 1031 like-kind exchange saw the last day of the Identification Period or the last day of the Exchange Period fall on a date which is on or after April 1, 2020 and before July 15, 2020 is now granted an extension of either deadline to July 15, 2020 to complete either required action. Read more.