By Associated Press • 

Oregon delays personal tax returns until July 15

By GILLIAN FLACCUS Associated Press

Oregon will delay its personal tax return deadline until July 15, Gov. Kate Brown announced Wednesday.

The IRS already previously extended the filing period for federal taxes for three months, from April 15 to July 15.

State Sen. Elizabeth Steiner Hayward, a co-chair of the Legislature’s budget committee, told Oregon Public Broadcasting on Tuesday — before the announcement — that delaying the tax deadline by three months would create a temporary cash flow shortfall of between $300 million and $500 million.

The state could issue short-term bonds to paper over that shortfall, she said, but that could prove expensive at a time other states will be rushing to do the same.

The Legislature could convene as early as next week to begin to hash out a response to Oregon's impending fiscal crisis, Brown has said.

“We are in what I call a quadruple bind. We have substantially declining revenues, we are focused on providing an unprecedented public health response to tackle the COVID-19 epidemic, we have enormous pressure on our public safety net … and unlike the federal government, we have to balance the budget,” Brown said Wednesday.

Also on Wednesday, Brown said the Oregon Health Authority will begin reporting more details on the state's COVID-19 cases, including a narrower age range for infected patients, their hospital status and the available non-ICU hospital beds, ICU beds and ventilators statewide.

The state had 2,028 available non-ICU beds, 394 ICU beds and 608 ventilators, she said.

There is still no end date for the state's stay-at-home order, Brown said.

“I am the governor of Oregon and my job is to protect the lives and health of Oregonians and one of the things I'm focused on is we have to make sure we have the ability to hospitalize those with COIVD-19 and we have to be able to provide beds,” she said. "That is going to be a key indicator for me of how long I keep the order in place."

 

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