 internal revenue service IRS tax news tax payers file when ready don't wait until October 17th the file of 2021 tax return file when you mean fire when ready IRS whatever I'd like to I mean I or I'm I'm ready to fire you IRS that's what I'm ready to fire that's what I'm talking about and don't rush me with my taxes I have until October 17th and I'll wait till five minutes before the deadline just like I did with my high school English papers why because that that's just the way I roll IRS that's just the way I roll deal with it deal with it man dang IRS sounds like mr. Beatty used to I'm a crazy rebel like that just yesterday I tore the tag off my mattress even though it said not to and I mean yeah I left it on there for 10 years just in case but then like yesterday I totally ripped it off and I'm not even that worried about it mainly because I did seek legal counsel before doing it and feel fairly certain the likelihood of repercussions is quite low but still I mean it says not to tear it off you know and I was like whatever man I recently got a comment calling my work a laughing stock which is exactly what I was shooting for looks like two snakes trying to kill each other on your head that's what I was going for I mean laughing stock sells for good money these days belly this doesn't cost money it makes money I know I pay good money for laughing stock you mean people will pay good money that I could put like in my youtube videos I think I have a scheme so deviously clever that I guess laughing stocks just another word for like cool meme it's right check it out you're already a meme I mean it's way better for your material to be laughing stock than laugh less stock am I right oh man Chris this computer is telling me that you done swift it up because nobody wants laugh less stock laughing stocks in demand man hey wouldn't you rather be with someone who's in demand just a bit outside he tried the corner and missed COVID tax tip 2022-131 August 25 2022 for people who requested an IRS extension to file the October 17th 2022 deadline may seem far away but it's coming up fast so if for tax year 2021 typically do in April but there's been weird stuff going on in any case if you went on extension then we're back kind of to the more normal deadline on the extension deadline October 17 2022 so you still got some time but it is coming up fast remember that the filing deadlines are different from the payment deadlines so if you owed money you still want to pay the money in order to avoid penalties and interest remember that's our goal here avoiding the penalties and interest so taxpayers who haven't filed whether they requested an extension or not should file a complete and accurate return as soon as possible so obviously the IRS would like to get the taxes as soon as possible generally because if they get the taxes later in the year if everybody was to file in October they're already backlogged with other tax returns and if they then go into the filing season it's gonna cost them you know it's gonna back them up a bit so obviously from the IRS standpoint they would typically like to get the tax returns and sooner you would think because this is the slow season in general for them right now and they would like to be cranking out what they can during this time before they get back into the busy season so for people who have all their paperwork in hand filing sooner and electronically could help them avoid possible processing delays later so they're basically saying hey look even though we hired a gazillion more IRS agents in that last bill that went through if you wait until the last minute here then maybe it will delay the processing time of the tax return so if that's a concern to you take it into consideration if they if the delay is their fault it may not have any impact on your on your end right because they might not shouldn't charge you penalties and interest as long as you filed it on time but obviously if you're looking for a refund then it becomes more important if you're looking for a refund then you might obviously you might want to file sooner you would already have an incentive to file sooner in that case you know anyways but in any case here are some resources and information to help taxpayers avoid getting caught up in a last-minute filing rush resources for people preparing their tax return you got the irs.gov so the iris is saying don't call us we'll put it on our website and you can check it out iris.gov iris.gov irs.gov the irs web page has tools and resources to help taxpayers and answer FAQs frequently asked questions you got the online account this is becoming more and more important I believe it will continue to be doing so going forward more like kind of how you might have your banking set up obviously a lot of this stuff is set up online now you would think that you would want to get more access to the stuff on the irs code especially considering they've been making some things more complicated like having these prepayments and that the stimulus payments and that kind of stuff which you can check on the irs website on your account possibly which would be great so and I I do believe that they took away the facial recognition so in order to sign up for an account they're not going to scan your face and put a chip in your forehead and then your phone and track you around yet so I think you could still get one and not not worry about that stuff so access individual account information to get info from the most recently filed tax return including adjusted gross income economic impact payments and advanced child credit payments you might need that last adjusted gross income number from your tax return in order to file your electronic tax return because it might actually ask for that so make sure that you have that available and are aware of it especially if you're filing or trying to file five minutes before the deadline which I don't actually recommend doing in practice you want a bit of a cushion you want a bit of a cushion case something goes wrong in any case interactive tax assistance there's a link to that here taxpayers can enter their info to get answers for their specific tax situation this tool can determine if an individual must file a tax return their filing status if they can claim a dependent if an income type is taxable and their eligibility to complain to claim a credit or deduct certain expenses so you got the interactive tax assistant now note that I believe if your income is below a certain threshold you could still get access to the free file software which is third-party software and so you might I mean I would think that doing that actually filling out the software and going through that process would be useful for most people because if your income is below a certain threshold you might not be required to file but remember that's a different thing than are you going to benefit from filing meaning you're not required to file if you don't owe any taxes meaning generally if your income is below like the standard deduction because the iris isn't going to come after you for not paying your taxes then but you might have some tax benefits especially in this cup last couple years because they've increased the number of refundable credits greatly like the earned income credit the child tax credit for example you know education credits have been changed and so on so I would recommend you know actually getting access to that free software and plug it in the numbers there so you can get you know an estimate of whether it be worthwhile to file and it should be kind of free to do so it might take a little bit more time but that's what I think might be worth doing so tax professionals so if you're tax pro tax pros can also help taxpayers prepare their tax returns authorize irs e-file providers are qualified to prepare transmit and process e-file returns taxpayers should choose tax preparer wisely choose wisely so the irs online directory there's a link to that here can help people find a local tax pro volunteer income tax assistance program there's a link to that here the irs vita program offers free basic tax return preparation to people who generally make $58,000 or less in people with disabilities or limited english speaking taxpayers most sites are only open during the filing season but taxpayers can use the vita site in locator tool there's a link to that here to see if there's a community based site staffed by irs trained certified volunteers still open near them taxpayers can file electronically for the fastest turnaround time so if you want to turn around fast here and obviously again it might not be as big an issue on the turnaround time if you're already filing you know an extension so remember that on the irs side of things like whenever you read something from the irs they kind of they kind of are going to frame it as if they're doing this for you right but clearly and it could be a benefit to you but they want the filing to be fast as well on their end they want everything electronic because they want to lower the staff time and make it faster and this and that as well so obviously if you're trying to look for a refund and you want to get that refund as soon as possible you would want to file as soon as possible you want to file electronically you want to give the direct deposit information that would give you the fastest turnaround on the refund if you're not as concerned with that stuff then it's not as long as you're avoiding the penalties and interest because there's not a big refund that you're looking for or something like that then it might not be as important to you specifically so just keep that in mind whenever you're reading stuff just basically from any company or or government entity that's that always will frame things as if you know it's not it's not in their interest they're looking out for you on it right but it's like okay so e-filing is fast accurate and secure when taxpayers use direct deposit their refund goes directly into their bank account the irs processes most e-filed returns and issues direct deposit refunds and less than 21 days you got the irs free file eligible individuals can use the irs free file program to prepare and file their 2021 federal tax returns for free these are third-party softwares that somehow the irs took their arm and they threatened they put it behind their back and threatened to break it that's my imagination i'm not sure it just to make them to have this free file option for you but i think it only so you want to get access to that because the software is really helpful to file the tax return if you're not hiring someone to help you do your taxes you would like to use the software generally and if your income is below a certain threshold you can get access to it if you wait past the deadline of october i don't think you have access to it anymore they the iris loses their their chokehold over the company somehow and so you want to take advantage of the software when you can taxpayers can choose the brand name tax preparation software company that is best for them some companies even offer a free state tax return preparation i don't think into it is on this list by the way which would be turbo tax which is a big name one i don't know why but i think they might offer a free option as well so you might want if you if you're no turbo tax or you want to check that one out you might want to go to their website directly and see if see if they have a free option if your income is below a certain level but i think the income level is going to be lower for them might be a lesser of an option but another option so those who earned more than 73,000 have the option to use irs free file fillable forms i don't really recommend doing that unless you're quite familiar with the forms because if your income's above the 73,000 your tax return is going to be more complex that's probably the point in time where you at least want to have software to fill out the tax return and notice things have changed a little bit i mean it used to be if your income was above 73,000 it would be more complex than tax returns below 73,000 but now because of all these refundable credits and whatnot the low end tax returns are actually quite complicated because you've got all these phase outs and earned income credits with the income going up and down and then you can you got the child affected all these stuff with these kind of credits but still usually when your income gets higher your tax return gets more complex and you would at least then at that point want software to help you out these free file fillable forms doesn't give you the same interview process as the software does and or at that point you might want to do actual tax planning into the future that's when you want to hire an accountant possibly a cpa or something and you would want to hire one maybe not like an h&r block that's just like a one-time thing you might want to hire someone who can help you to plan as your income hopefully continues to grow at least keep it up with inflation right but any case mill tax online software mill tax online software is also available for members of the military and certain veterans i'm still up in the air or i don't know if the mill tax software is better than the free file software so meaning if your income is below 73,000 and you have the option of something like a a a proprietorial software that's competing on the market or the mill tax software which is done by the government the department of defense i would think that the market competing softwares would be better in general and have the capacity to deal with military related people as well who do have a lot of special needs that you want to make sure that because you got benefits related to it as in there but the mill tax so but i don't know i don't know if that's the case but the mill taxes of course designed specifically for the military although it's not competing on the market so i would think it would not be as as good competitively because you know there's they don't have that same kind of pressure but uh if your income's above the 73,000 you may still be able to get that free access to the mill tax as well this software is offered through the department of defense commercial software the software uses a question and answer format that makes doing taxes easier the return is signed electronically and transmitted through irs approved electronic channels the extension to file a tax return is not an extension to pay taxes to remember those two things are different remember your objective avoid penalties and interest the iris is up to their wielding sticks don't let them try to trick you here it's their wielding sticks and they're ready to hit you with them and there's two things that can hit you with one's going to be the filing penalty and once the payment penalty those two things are different they're two different sticks that they're going to hit you with so if you got an extension but you still owe them money they're still going to say that you owed us money before even though you're filing later and you didn't know how much money you owed because you hadn't filed the tax return yet but you still owe the money as of the date that they said you owed the money so you got to estimate the tax payments in order to avoid the sticks hitting you in the face of penalties and interest metaphorically speaking that is taxpayers owe taxes can review all payment options online there's a link to that here the irs has options for people who can't pay their taxes including applying for a payment plan so this i would think in the last couple years you might have a lot more people that are like man i can't pay my taxes maybe this is the first time that's happened and you might have people that then didn't file taxes which i think it would give some justification for the news we saw i think yesterday where they're trying to waive some of the late filing penalties where i thought was a little i don't know exactly why that came up because i think that's kind of incentivizing you know the people that didn't file and not giving a benefit to the people that complied i don't really get that so much but maybe that's the rationale behind it but uh you if you can't pay the taxes you still want to avoid the sticks of penalties and interest and the way you do that is you file you set up a payment plan with them and you'll still pay some penalties and interest but it'll be a lot lower and it's pretty easy to do you can do it online so you can go to irs.gov so here are some other things to know generally there's no penalty for not filing a return if do a refund but there's also no status of statute of limitations for assessing and collecting due taxes due if no return has been filed meaning when you file the tax return there's usually a statute of limitations then that the iris has to if you go past three years i believe it is the iris is limited to being able to come and audit you and but they could say that well if you had fraud or something like that then it could be longer than that if you're in if the if the thing was if the if you were off by a large amount then they have more time so in theory there's a statute of limitations so if you don't file then you don't have the statute of limitations and the iris could come and after you indefinitely which they probably could anyways but in theory they at least it's a little more difficult if they're past the statute of limitations so interest is charged on any tax not paid by the april due date and will accrue until paid in full penalties will accrue for each month tax remains unpaid until maxed out at 25 of the unpaid tax submitting the tax return and paying the amount owed as soon as possible can help taxpayers avoid further interest and penalties that's the stick that they call they call that stick penalties and interest more information can be found at the links below irs encourages taxpayers with october filing extensions and others who still need to file i do i need to file a tax return what to do if you haven't filed your tax return voice spot video there's a voice spot video who sounds like a some kind of hip song or something voice spot video i don't self-service options there's links to those stuff here and there'll be a link to this in the description