This year’s deadline for filing our state and federal income taxes was extended to May 17th.
But North Dakota Tax Commissioner Ryan Rauschenberger said most North Dakotans filed their state income tax returns by the normal April 15th deadline date.
"If you look at April 15th, we had about 350,000 North Dakotans who had already filed," Rauschenberger said. "Typically, that's because they're wage-earners, and they were filing to get a refund."
Rauschenberger said the average tax refund was $253. Last year, he said the refund averaged $236.
Rauschenberger said as of last Friday, there have been 432,000 returns filed.
"We had 82,000 taxpayers that filed between April 15th and the new filing deadline," Rauschenberger said.
And Rauschenberger said returns continue to trickle in, because of mail delays and extensions.
And Rauschenberger said his office is working on tax refunds that have come about because of a new federal exemption on unemployment. He said it was part of the “American Rescue Act,” passed earlier this year.
"It exempted the first $10,200 of unemployment benefits from federal taxable income," Rauschenberger said. "Normally, all unemployment is taxable."
Rauschenberger said about 30,000 filers are affected. He said his department is working through those returns individually to make that adjustment, and make the refunds.
Rauschenberger said other states are requiring “amended returns” from those filers eligible for those refunds. But he said North Dakota isn’t.
