Tax filing deadline
extended for combat

Military personnel get 180 days after leaving combat to file a tax return. During that time, interest and penalties are waived.

The extension begins the day a service member enters a combat zone. That includes the air space over a combat zone, and includes personnel who directly support combat operations and receive "hostile fire" or "imminent danger" pay.

The deadline also gets extended if a service member is hospitalized outside the United States with combat injuries. Civilian employees of defense contractors are included only if they serve in a combat zone in support of U.S. armed forces.

The IRS extends audit deadlines for military personnel in combat, and suspends installment-plan payments for service members who owe unpaid income taxes when they enter combat.

Pay earned in combat zones is tax-free to most military personnel, a benefit available to husband and wife if both served in combat. Combat zones currently include regions in the Arabian Peninsula, Afghanistan and Kosovo.

A new federal law lets service members apply tax-free combat pay toward generating a bigger child tax credit or earned income tax credit.

Tax-free combat pay should appear on the Form W-2 sent to each service member to report annual income. The death benefit paid to survivors of service members killed in combat is also tax-free. The IRS instructs military personnel and their families to write "COMBAT ZONE" and their deployment date in red ink at the top of their returns.

The 442nd Veterans Club will hold its 62nd anniversary remembrance banquet, "Our Brothers Keeper," at 10 a.m. March 20 at the Sheraton Waikiki Hotel. The annual memorial service will be held at 9 a.m. March 19 at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, Punchbowl.