Tax filing date if Im getting a refund?
Straight from the horse’s mouth: My refunds were being withheld to pay off a dept. of education loan that my (now late) wife didn’t actually owe. We were still fighting it, so I held off on filing for two years in a row. I talked to the IRS over the phone at that time, and was told by the agent that if you’re owed a refund, you have three years to file. I believe this was from the end of the tax year in question, not the following April. If you file after the three years, they still can’t do anything to you; they just don’t give you the refund. I filed three tax returns in two months after she died, and the Dept. of Ed. didn’t get a penny from me. [rant] This loan was paid off over 20 years before they notified her that she supposedly owed them money. Any non-government debt would’ve been out of the statute of limitations by then. She appealed and lost because any proof of payments made by her deceased mother was long gone by then. Again, a non-government agency has the burden of proof
(Note: IANA accountant) By law you are required to file by April 17th, regardless of your status. In practice, if you are due a refund and file within 3 years of the due date, there has been no penalty (in my experience). That said – the government is collecting your interest while they are hanging on to your money, so sooner is better than later. If you wish to protect yourself, file for an automatic extension till mid-August (don’t foget to file a state extension, too, if applicable). Forms are available online.
Because you get the same refund whether you wait or not, and it’s worth the meager bit of interest you’d be earning to not have to stress about it this weekend? Not to derail this further, but…if one is reasonably confident that a refund is due, it stands to reason that (minimally) quick&dirty calculations have been done which bear this out — perhaps not the exact total of the refund, but a rough guesstimate which puts one firmly in the black. If that much can be done easily, it may follow that your taxes are pretty uncomplicated. In that case, I presume it would be roughly the same amount of work to file an extension as it would be to file a return. Having expended the effort to get that far, it isn’t much more taxing (ahem) to fill out the form and turn it in. Heck, you can do your federal return online for free, no paper or calculator necessary. But yeah, you could extend and get it done later. I’m just sayin.
I’ve filed a month or two late when I was owed money: the IRS does not care. They only get mad when you owe money and file late. And the deadline is actually not the 15 of April, believe it or not. Unless its changed. I knew a person that worked at the IRS handling tax returns, and absolutely no action was taken until it was after the 25th. She reliably filed by the 25th, even owing money, and never got in trouble.
