Have you procrastinated and missed the deadline for filing your tax return? Regardless if you filed an extension, you should file your return as soon as possible. Collect all your tax information and bring it in as soon as possible to have your taxes prepared.
What if My Tax Return is Past Due?
If your return was not filed by the due date (including extensions of time to file), you may be subject to the failure to file penalty. If you did not pay your tax in full by the original due date of the return (regardless of extensions of time to file), you may also be subject to the failure to pay penalty. Additionally, interest is charged on taxes not paid by the due date, even if you have an extension of time to file. Interest is also charged on penalties.
What if I’m Expecting a Refund?
There is no penalty for failure to file if you are due a refund. But, if you wait to file a return or otherwise claim a refund, you risk losing a refund altogether. An original return claiming a refund must be filed within 3 years of its due date for a refund to be allowed in most instances.
How Long do I have to Collect my Refund?
After the expiration of the three-year window, the refund statute prevents the issuance of a refund check and the application of any credits, including overpayments of estimated or withholding taxes, to other tax years that are underpaid. However, the statute of limitations for the IRS to assess and collect any outstanding balances does not start until a return has been filed. In other words, there is no statute of limitations for assessing and collecting the tax if no return has been filed.
What Penalties do I Face for Not Filing?
It’s important to understand the ramifications of not filing a past due return and the steps that the IRS will take. Taxpayers who continue to not file a required return and fail to respond to IRS requests for a return may be considered for a variety of enforcement actions.
If you have not filed a tax return yet, please contact our office for assistance. We can help to give you the best options for your particular situation. We assist our clients on a regular basis in filing late returns, arranging payment plans and anything we can do to help take the stress that not knowing their options can cause.
Sourced IRS.gov [1]