If you missed the tax deadline, it is important that you act as quickly as possible to file your tax forms. The penalties can be much more serious for not filing at all than for filing but failing to pay your taxes, so you shouldn't hesitate to submit your tax forms for the 2018 year.
A Virginia tax lawyer can help you to complete the necessary forms to submit your tax return and can provide you with advice on devising an appropriate strategy if you owe taxes for 2018 that you are not able to pay.
What Should You Do If You Missed the Tax Deadline?
The IRS recommends that tax filers who missed the tax deadline submit their tax forms as soon as possible and pay what they owe as soon as possible.
If you are owed a refund by the IRS, you do not have to worry as much because there aren't any penalties charged for late filing if the IRS owes you money rather than you owing the IRS money.
However, if you don't file your returns within three years when you are owed a refund, you won't be able to collect that refund from the IRS any more – so you don't want to wait too long to file. If you are hoping to e-file your forms, which is typically the simplest way to submit your tax returns, you will also need to get your forms submitted before October 15 when the extended deadline for filing your tax forms ends.
Those who owe money to the IRS will also have only until the October 15 deadline if they hope to e-file their tax returns. However, if you owe, you want to act as quickly as possible to get your tax return submitted because you owe a penalty for each month that you are late.
The penalty for a late payment is .5% of unpaid taxes per month, up to a maximum of 25% of the total unpaid tax bill. However, the penalty for a late filing is much greater, as is the combined penalty for failing to file and for failing to pay. In fact, you could owe 5 percent of the unpaid tax amount for failure to file and failure to pay. There's also a minimum penalty imposed for taxpayers who fail to file their taxes for more than 60 days after tax day.
Because penalties are so much higher for not filing, you should file your tax returns ASAP if you missed the tax deadline. If you cannot pay, you should still file – but explore possibilities such as entering into a repayment plan with the IRS or using a personal loan in order to pay the unpaid balance you owe to the IRS.
A Virginia tax lawyer can help you to get your tax returns in, explore payment options, and determine the best approach to resolving problems with a tax return you haven't filed by the deadline so contact an attorney today to learn more.
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