The year of 2016 is unique for taxes as it will be one of the latest times for you to file on April 18. Here is the reason the personal and business tax due date for 2016 is delayed, as well as some last minute guide to filing your taxes.
The reason the tax deadline for Personal and Business Due Date is later this year is due to Washington D.C. having their Emancipation Day on April 15, according to the Liberty Tax Service. Normally, Emancipation Day, the celebration of when President Lincoln signed the bill ending slavery, is celebrated on April 16, but since it is on a Saturday in 2016, the deadline is April 18.
For those who are doing their taxes at the last minute, and don't think you can succeed, then there will be a penalty. Lifehacker states that the late filing penalty is 5 percent of the additional taxes owed amount for every month (or fraction thereof) your return is late, up to a maximum of 25 percent. Should you file more than 60 days after the due date, the minimum penalty is $135 or 100 percent of your unpaid tax, whichever is smaller.
If the IRS owes you a refund, they don't care when you file. You should file within three years, or you forfeit whatever return that you would have had, and the IRS has $1 billion in unclaimed refunds. Perhaps this is how H&R Block figured out that "Get Your Billion Back America" figure.
If you want to file and extension, then be warned: you will still have to pay your taxes on Tax Day. If you don't pay then, you're on the hook for late payments. Extensions should only be filed if you know that you are not going to get your taxes done correctly or on time. Filing extensions can be done via IRS Form 4868 at Free File from the IRS website.
If you can pay on the 18th, do it, but if you don't have the money to pay, there are some options. You can use IRS Form 1127 with an extension of a payment for up to 12 months, but interest will need to be paid. There is also a possibility of postponing the bill due to financial difficulty using a Collection Information Statement, as long as you have proof of financial status. There is also the possibility of setting up a payment plan with the IRS, as well as repayment agreements on a monthly basis.
As someone who is self-employed, I find that I can file online, and it takes about a few hours. The issue is that it takes about a few days for me to find all the proof I need for every transaction of income and expense via credit card receipts and the like. Not only that, it takes the time to compile and organize all of them together for filing the Form C as well as the deductibles. It is something that admittedly should be done all year, but yes, I am a procrastinator as well.
In other words, you have been given a delay for April 18, so use the rest of this week and the weekend to compile and then e-file if you can. More information about tax documents and where to e-file can be found at the IRS website.
