The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) decided to heed the pleas of lawmakers and advocacy groups who have been urging the tax agency to postpone this year’s April 15, 2021 filing deadline.

The IRS confirmed yesterday it postponed the deadline until May 17, 2021.

The tax agency said it planned to release additional details in the coming days.

There are a number of ongoing factors that are posing a challenge for taxpayers, preparers and the IRS this year.

The IRS began sending out a new round of $1,400 checks to qualifying households over the weekend, in the midst of the current, truncated tax season that opened February 12, 2021.

The agency also had a backlog of millions of individual and business returns that it had not yet processed from last year around the time that this year’s tax season started.

Further, the IRS will likely receive more returns than it typically does because individuals must file a return in order to claim any economic impact payment money that they are entitled to but did not receive automatically.