 internal revenue service IRS tax news extension filers tax help is just a click away on irs.gov irs.gov the irs website otherwise known as irs go v v standing for victory over tax questions and this is clearly a not so subtle message from the irs pleading with the American people asking please don't call us use the website because we have neither the capacity nor the desire to talk to you in person COVID tax tip 2022-64 April 26 2022 tax payers with an extension can file when they are ready but most should file by October 17 2022 so in other words the tax year 2021 tax deadline has passed that being the April 18th you might have filed an extension remembering that you want to keep the two things separate the two deadlines separate the deadline of when you owe the money versus the deadline in terms of the filing deadline so if you owed money by April 18th then you still want to make sure that you pay them as soon as possible because you still could be subject to the penalties and interest on it however if you filed the extension you typically have that extension period of time to file that extension time extends up to the October 17 2022 so again if you think that you might owe money it might be better it might be who view it might be a beneficial thing to then file sooner to make sure that you could pay whatever is owed to reduce the amount of penalties and interest at that point in time if possible but to have to avoid filing penalties and whatnot you might have until the October 17 2022 if you're on extension okay special deadline exceptions may apply for some disaster victims certain military service members and eligible support personnel in combat zones there's links to those items here so you can look at those exceptions in a little bit more detail when individuals with an extension are ready to file irs.gov irs.gov v v for victory over tax questions sometimes has a variety of tools and resources to help make filing easier here are a few of them they got the free electronic filing taxpayers who have electronically prepare and file online will likely have fewer mistakes on their tax return electronic filing options like irs free file there's a link to that here that means it's gonna take you to those third-party softwares where again the iris somehow kind of twisted their arms on these third-party softwares so that these softwares are providing the software for free if your income is below a certain level but the iris can't really hold that arm of these these private companies behind their back for too long and so I think you only have until the extension time and then you're not gonna have access to this free file stuff so if you kind of you want to take out take advantage of that and I why wouldn't you if you if your income is below a certain threshold then you want to do that before before you before it goes away so you could check that out there's a link to that here their commercial tax softwares they do the math for you they flag common errors and ask for missing information part of the reason clearly the iris is forcing companies to do this or is wanting a free file option with tax software is because the tax preparation especially for lower income people is getting more complex because they're making huge changes from year to year on things that affect low to moderate income people like the child tax credit advanced child tax credit stimulus payments recovery rebate credit and so on and so forth so you really you know tax software is almost almost required if you're not like a tax professional these days even a tax professional it's gonna have trouble making even what used to be a simple return due to all these kind of credits so you kind of need the software to help you out with it so taxpayers with income over seventy three thousand dollars and those who are comfortable completing their tax returns may choose to use irs free file fillable forms I think they just give this option just to show that hey look we're giving a free option to everyone that's not that's an electronic option but I think most people wouldn't really want to do it free fillable forms because you're kind of doing it by hand you're doing it with a street calculator through that and if your income is below the threshold of seventy three thousand your income might be more complex because it's on the higher end you might be itemizing in stuff which means you're more likely to make errors there so I would think if your income is higher and you don't qualify for the free software that you might want to buy the software you might be able to afford it at that point and or get tax help at that point how your professional that can help you to to to plan into the future so the military community can also file their taxes using the middle tax now I think that's free for the military users no matter how high the income but I still I have questions about how good it is if you were to compare middle tax up to like the top software that was a proprietary software such as a turbo tax although I don't think turbo tax is in this free file turbo tax might have a free file thing if you go to their website like strictly there if your income is below a certain level I don't know why it's not included in here or what happened with that but they said no I'm not twisted my arm IRS or something like that but in any case because you have the capacity to fill out tax returns that are military related for the for the commercials softwares as well but they're not geared directly towards the military however they're on the market and they're competing with other tax softwares whereas middle tax is is a government software that's not competing with other softwares and therefore I would think that it wouldn't be as up to par with all the as easy of the data input but again that's just maybe I'm maybe I'm wrong on that if anyone has any any experience with middle tax versus other software I'd be interested to know how good it is or what's your experience was with it so it's a free tax resource offer through the Department of Defense eligible taxpayers there's a link to that here can use middle tax to electronically file a federal tax return and up to three state returns for free and then there's the interactive tax assistance this online tool provides answers to tax law questions you get a link to that here they've got the directory of tax return preparers for taxpayers who want help with their taxes this online directory there's a link to that here can help them find a tax professional in their area so you can check out tax professionals if you want to look them up and that could be a good way to start you know one drilling down their credentials and whatnot reconciling advanced child tax credit or claiming a recovery rebate credit people who need to reconcile advanced child tax credit payments or claim the recovery rebate credit there's links to those items here we'll need additional information about 2021 payments to file an accurate tax return and avoid processing delay these individuals must have the total amounts of advanced child tax credit payments to receive the remainder of their child tax credit and the amount of their third brown economic impact payment to claim a recovery rebate credits so the iris's favorite tools in the last few years here have been these advanced payments so they're trying to get they're getting ahead of themselves given the money out there before the return is filed which of course means you got to have an estimate and it means that there's going to be some kind of estimates that are going to be off from time to time and it means you got to reconcile things on the tax return at the end which means you got to know how much the iris paid you during the year and so it's getting more and more helpful to get online to have your online tool to check out those things because you're going to need them to file the tax return so tax fairs should check their online account or review letter 6419 2021 total advanced child tax credit payment and letter 6475 your 2021 economic impact payment for their total amount total payment amounts this will help them file an accurate return married spouses who received a joint payment will need to log into their own online account or review their own letter for their portion of the total payment so if you're married they're sending them out kind of per person so if you're married you still got to check out your own account even though you're like one person I thought we were joint we were one entity for taxes now kind of but not always if filing a 2021 return as married filing jointly they should add the payment together to provide the total amount where's my refund taxpayers can check the status of their refund within 24 hours after the IRS has received their e-file return once the IRS approves a refund where's my refund there's a link to that here will give will give the taxpayer they said that twice it's not me if I'm not stuttering here they although there wouldn't be anything I stutter sometimes sometimes that sometimes I stutter but will give will give they did they did that the taxpayers a date to expand it the IRS updates this tool once a day usually overnight so there's no need to check the status more often so again if you or anyone you know is checking the status of where's my refund like every hour or more than twice a day possibly in the morning or the evening then they probably have some kind of compulsive thing going on some kind of problem and you should you should work on it you should because you don't need to do that like twice a day is enough because they only update it once a day see agency employees can only research a taxpayer refund status 21 days after the taxpayer filed electronically or if where's my refund directs the taxpayer to call the IRS the IRS issues most refunds in fewer than 21 days for taxpayers who file electronically and choose direct deposit there's a link to direct deposit however some returns have errors or need more review and may take longer to process so they have a key exception here so don't spend your money before you before it's in your hands unless you have to obviously so things things they can delay a refund the return has errors is incomplete or is affected by identity theft or fraud the return needs a correction to the child tax credit or recovery rebate credit amount the return has a claim filed for an earned income tax credit additional child tax credits or includes form 8379 injured spouse allocation the time it takes a taxpayers bank or credit union to post the refund to the taxpayers account the IRS will contact taxpayers by mail if it needs more information to process their return so in summary just remember the iris is general message here is that they're not so subtle message from the IRS pleading the American people asking please don't call us use the website because we have neither the capacity nor the desire to talk to you in person so here's your only option for the most part when you got this stuff here and there's links to that stuff here that we talked about and there'll be a link to this in the description