The federal tax deadline is April 15 for most taxpayers, but if you’re not ready to file, there’s still time to request an IRS tax extension, experts say.
“If you have not filed yet, don’t panic. You still have many options,” Candace Harden, senior tax analyst with the IRS, said during a webinar on Tuesday.
One option is filing a tax extension via Form 4868, which pushes the due date to October 15. But you still must pay taxes by the original April 15 deadline to avoid penalties and interest. The failure-to-file penalty is 5% of your unpaid taxes monthly, up to 25%, while the failure-to-pay penalty is 0.5% of your balance monthly, with the same cap.
You should estimate your total liability, subtract taxes paid and send the balance by the original due date, according to the IRS.
Roughly 30% of Americans said they expected to procrastinate on their taxes this season, according to a survey from IPX1031, a real estate firm. The survey polled about 1,000 filers in January.
