The Tax Filing Deadline Is Almost Here! What to Do?

The tax filing deadline is this Tuesday the 18th of April. If you can’t get your tax information together to file your taxes then the next best thing to do is to get an automatic extension from the IRS. It’s automatic in that the IRS will automatically accept the extension, but you have to do all the work (or of course we can also do it). Just send in form 4868 to the IRS by April 18th, if you miss that date it is too late, you will not get the extension. Here is a link to the form Application for Automatic Extension of Time To File U.S. Individual …

Why do you want to send in for an extension? Because not doing so starts a failure to file penalty at 5% of the amount owed per month. It adds up quickly.

The form with instructions is long and overly complicated, but at the bare minimum just fill in your personal information in part I and write zero in part II and mail it. Ok that is quick and dirty and that takes care of the failure to file penalty.

The other part is paying the amount of taxes owed, not paying by the 18th incurs a failure to pay penalty at 1/2% per month. It’s not near as bad as the 5% per month but if you have a large amount owed than it is important. This normally doesn’t happen with wage earners since they have taxes withheld from their paychecks, but if your are in business and don’t make quarterly payments it can get expensive. So to prevent that penalty figure out what what you might owe and submit the payment with the extension. I make it sound easy don’t I, well it’s not but that is were we can help. Give us a call so we can shut off the IRS penalties!

Jim