By now you’re either sitting pretty or you’ve become a…tax fugitive! If you’re living on the dark side now, you should know the exact penalties that are accruing against you:
- Information Return applies to taxpayers who don’t file or furnish their required information return or payee statement correctly by the due date.
- Failure to File applies when you don’t file your tax return by the due date.
- Failure to Pay applies when you don’t pay the tax you owe by the due date.
- Failure to Deposit applies when you don’t pay employment taxes accurately or on time.
- Underpayment of Estimated Tax by Individuals applies when you don’t pay estimated tax accurately or on time as an individual.
Source: IRS website
It’s time to get it done and start retracing your missteps. In my experience, it’s always more than one thing that leads to late taxes. When I was married, I remember going from impatient to receive my 1099s and K-1s in January — to completely crazed and trying to get it together before midnight on April 15. Those days are behind me, but I learned a lot on the journey to financial literacy.
One thing is to create systems that make keeping up simple and easy. At JHA, we’re happy to work with a garbage bag filled with receipts, because that’s a system! The most important thing is to create a system that you will stick to — and easily start up again after “falling off the wagon.” Don’t plan on being your most organized self every day: Engineer for your worst day.
Even if you don’t have the bandwidth to do those things for yourself, help is available. At JHA we love making sure our clients get their taxes in on time. Contact us to learn more.
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