4 ms·

Due tomorrow, do tomorrow. A lot of people wait till the final deadline since e-filing is so easy. Or at least that's how I tend to do it.

leggomylibro 10y ago
That's what I thought, until the IRS needed a credit card last 4 digits and phone number to confirm my identity, and said that my phone company couldn't verify my identity...? What an awful system. I probably wound up a day late with the postage because of that, but those assholes are lucky I filed at all. I was about ready to just throw my 1040 in the trash chute and give up my rebate as a lost cause. My time is worth more than this antiquated horseshit, and if I've learned anything from my grandpop it's that audits don't mean shit if you just keep ignoring them. So, there's your procrastinator's attitude in a nutshell I guess.
- treehau5 10y ago
  Sorry you don't get to make the rules, pal. You live in this country and you reap all the benefits but don't want to move your lazy ass to do some paperwork a couple days in advance? Took me all of maybe 3 hours. The least I could do considering this country defends me globally 24/7, builds me roads, has hospitals I can go to, community and public universities, etc. etc.
  - leggomylibro 10y ago
    Ha, funny guy. Nobody in this country with any sort of serious income pays their fair share in taxes, and you think I should get a hard time for not wanting to put in the effort to collect a paltry sum that the IRS owes me? Because of some misguided belief in our country's staggeringly bloated military or something? I'll start taking the system seriously when people with more means than myself do.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
  - coldpie 10y ago
    It could take you 0 hours, but Republicans consistently shoot down any attempts to make tax filing easier. Don't forget to vote every year.
    - treehau5 10y ago
      Please leave partisanship aside on HN. Besides they shoot any attempts down because it's the solution they disagree with: i.e. letting the IRS do it for you. For a small government conservative, this is a mortal sin. For me it's a big no-no on a common sense level. Why am I going to let the office responsible for taking my money decide how much they get to take if it is at least somewhat in my control now? If government offices charging you money have taught me anything in my short life on earth, is they always charge you more, and expect you to go through the motions to get that price adjusted. Your property not really worth 208,000 dollars, but 196,000? Sorry, gotta pay at least 2 people to come and assess the value on top of having the tax assessor come out. Have a nice next 6 months. By the way, you need to pay the higher rate now, and wait for us to refund you. You might get it next year. Yeah, no thanks. The irony of it all is our taxes are complicated because we want them to be complicated. To quote a famous The Atlantic article, "The irony is that the tax code is complicated because we want it to be complicated. Home owners want to be rewarded for their home ownership. Parents want to get money for their kids. Everybody wants a subsidy for health care. Poor people appreciate the extra cash. Break by break, tax breaks are popular. Hugely popular. Come-and-take-this-from-my-cold-dead-hands popular. But in the aggregate, they make people furious about the tax code. They push up rates, distribute money to the rich, and make it look like people aren't paying their fair share. That's democracy for you."
      - tanderson92 10y ago
        Nobody is talking about changing one's ability to file their own taxes. But even modest proposals like having the IRS fill in all information it already knows are shot down by politicians, many conservatives. Coincidentally, many of them receive substantial campaign donations from tax prep industry.
        10y ago
- wfunction 10y ago
  You can ignore audits?
  - leggomylibro 10y ago
    Sure. If you aren't self-employed, your employer already pays your taxes and you're likely owed money by the IRS. It's your choice if you don't want to collect it. If you're self-employed and not reporting income...well, that's another story. But this is terrible advice that you should definitely ignore, anyways.
    - wfunction 10y ago
      I didn't ask if you can avoid filing taxes or collecting the money you're owed; I asked if you can ignore audits, since the claim was the latter.
      - leggomylibro 10y ago
        Right, and it really depends on how serious they are. If they think you owe a lot of money, then no, you cannot ignore them. If they think you're just an asshole who can't be arsed to deal with them or is not capable of doing so, they really aren't going to do anything. Like I said, my grandfather owns a business and hasn't filed in decades. It caused my Uncle some serious consternation when he took the reigns, but he never faced any consequences in the form of being held in contempt, asset seizure, etc. Just some nastygrams every now and again. But again, this is awful advice; I was mostly being facetious. You should not just outright ignore your taxes, you should at least make a desultory effort to get SOMETHING in. But damned if I'm going to bother pulling together any more forms than are in arms/web's reach, or mail in anything more than the bare minimum.
  - jedberg 10y ago
    To more specially answer your question, legally you don't have to show up to an audit. The audit is supposedly in your best interest, because it will stop the clock on racking up penalties and interest, assuming you pay them afterwards. If you just keep ignoring it, eventually you will die and your estate won't be released to your heirs until the tax man gives it a final audit, and your estate will have to pay penalties and interest back to when you failed to pay. If you're poor and/or broke, then sure, ignore an audit, because they can't get blood from a stone. :)
- omegaworks 10y ago
  Call your 2 Senators and Representative. Call your state's Congress people. [0] Let them know you care about this. Advocate for systems like ReadyReturn, the one proposed by Professor Bankman. [1] 0. https://whoaremyrepresentatives.org/ https://whoaremyrepresentatives.org/ 1. http://www.npr.org/2017/03/29/521954033/stanford-professor-loses-political-battle-to-simplify-tax-filing-process http://www.npr.org/2017/03/29/521954033/stanford-professor-l...
- gozur88 10y ago
  The IRS had huge problems with identity theft last year. They had to do something. Better to have those sorts of problems than to have them coming after you for a $20k payout to some scammer.
  - leggomylibro 10y ago
    I don't care if a scammer scams the IRS out of $20K; that's their problem, not mine. If they think I'm responsible, well they can check my accounts; they're shit outta luck. And their protective measures demonstrably did not work, anyways. Requiring a tenuous chain of several checks to all succeed is ridiculous; I have plenty of ways to verify my identity, FFS.
    - timecube 10y ago
      >they're shit outta luck. This is why the new measures exist.
      - leggomylibro 10y ago
        Right, but that's not helpful if I'm unable to efile because of their "new measures." Why not allow several forms of ID, like maybe a driver's license or passport? Why is a phone number the blocking step? Who designed this system? That's how I feel whenever I am forced to interact with the IRS. Once, I went to one of their fully automated systems only to find that the entire website was only open between the hours of 9AM-5PM on weekdays! What? I'm getting real tired of this shit. It's just unreasonable to expect me to jump through all of these hoops for something that they insist is so essential. If it's essential, then make it easy! If it's not easy, then don't make me do it! Life is hard enough without the government ordering me to do busywork, and then failing to support the systems which they want me to use. Either it shouldn't be an order, or the system should work. Full stop. And I wouldn't be so upset if this horseshit bureaucracy and presumption of malfeasance wasn't starting to permeate every single aspect of modern life.
        nightski 10y ago
- matt-attack 10y ago
  You must merely have your returns postmarked by the deadline. There's no impact by a failing e-filing system. Worst case, print them out, attach a check if needed and drop them in the mail.
  - jedberg 10y ago
    > There's no impact by a failing e-filing system. Unless you efile after the post office closes on the night of the 18th and/or don't own a printer and/or can't get there after efile fails but before the post office closes. Or there are people like me, where my efile was rejected on April 19th. Now what do I do? If I try to efile again, it just says, "sorry, you're past the deadline". If I mail in a form it will technically be late, although I guess if they say anything I can show them my failed efile attempt...
    - nightski 10y ago
      Don't wait until the 18th? I always file my taxes in January. It's REALLY simple. Also, being late isn't that bad. You'll likely get a notice in the mail detailing out any late charges. Which for being 1 day late will be extremely minor relative to your income.
      - jedberg 10y ago
        That's great if your taxes are simple. Mine is not, and one of the critical forms didn't arrive in my email until April 16th, so I couldn't finish till then, and it affected other parts. And yeah, I know being late isn't terrible, and in fact if you are owed a refund there is no penalty at all. But it's still annoying that it was late because critical government run infrastructure was broken.
    - smkellat 10y ago
      There is a "perfection" period when things go wrong in e-filing. Granted, you shouldn't have waited until the last moment to file. That being said, you could have called 1-800-829-1040 for guidance on how to fix the problem through either fixing your e-filing or mailing it in with appropriate headings to still be counted on-time. The main line was slow on the 18th and people had very little wait time. The 19th was much the same. There were an excess of operators who were waiting for calls on the non-specialty line. Go read Publication 17 for guidance for next year.
ssttoo 10y ago
Makes me a little nervous every year whether the turbotax site will hold up as everyone is filing on the last day, juts like me. Imagine their ops folks' schedule. Arpil - December: crickets. A little bump in January as new versions of the software are released to address tax law changes. Then more crickets. And last three days: hell.
- dnautics 10y ago
  my bank (which is also my stock brokerage) had an outage and though i did my taxes on saturday, I had a minor panic that I wouldn't be able to complete them without having access to my stock 1099s. I can only assume that outage was due to demand-related ops.
- tbihl 10y ago
  IRS penalties for late filing are a portion of taxes owed. Most people don't owe anything (rather, they receive a refund), so there is no penalty.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- Consultant32452 10y ago
  Turbo Tax is so prolific that when Intuit had capacity problems on filing day in 2007 the IRS extended the filing deadline for Turbo Tax users. http://www.accountingweb.com/tax/irs/irs-extends-turbo-tax-e-filing-deadline http://www.accountingweb.com/tax/irs/irs-extends-turbo-tax-e...
delecti 10y ago
Really? I get on that as soon as I can in February. Filing earlier gets me my refund as quickly as possible. Though I'm also kinda weird, in that I actually rather like the process.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > Filing earlier gets me my refund as quickly as possible. Not everyone overpays taxes in advance, so filing early provides no benefit other than moving a required task to the "done" pile sooner.
- mod 10y ago
  A great many folks don't get a refund. I was exactly even this year, guess my withholding was correct.
ubernostrum 10y ago
If I could have waited, I would have. Unfortunately, my return clocks in around 30 pages and has multiple attached schedules and worksheets, which means I can't just do it the day of.

leggomylibro 10y ago

That's what I thought, until the IRS needed a credit card last 4 digits and phone number to confirm my identity, and said that my phone company couldn't verify my identity...? What an awful system. I probably wound up a day late with the postage because of that, but those assholes are lucky I filed at all. I was about ready to just throw my 1040 in the trash chute and give up my rebate as a lost cause. My time is worth more than this antiquated horseshit, and if I've learned anything from my grandpop it's that audits don't mean shit if you just keep ignoring them. So, there's your procrastinator's attitude in a nutshell I guess.

treehau5 10y ago
Sorry you don't get to make the rules, pal. You live in this country and you reap all the benefits but don't want to move your lazy ass to do some paperwork a couple days in advance? Took me all of maybe 3 hours. The least I could do considering this country defends me globally 24/7, builds me roads, has hospitals I can go to, community and public universities, etc. etc.
- leggomylibro 10y ago
  Ha, funny guy. Nobody in this country with any sort of serious income pays their fair share in taxes, and you think I should get a hard time for not wanting to put in the effort to collect a paltry sum that the IRS owes me? Because of some misguided belief in our country's staggeringly bloated military or something? I'll start taking the system seriously when people with more means than myself do.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- coldpie 10y ago
  It could take you 0 hours, but Republicans consistently shoot down any attempts to make tax filing easier. Don't forget to vote every year.
  - treehau5 10y ago
    Please leave partisanship aside on HN. Besides they shoot any attempts down because it's the solution they disagree with: i.e. letting the IRS do it for you. For a small government conservative, this is a mortal sin. For me it's a big no-no on a common sense level. Why am I going to let the office responsible for taking my money decide how much they get to take if it is at least somewhat in my control now? If government offices charging you money have taught me anything in my short life on earth, is they always charge you more, and expect you to go through the motions to get that price adjusted. Your property not really worth 208,000 dollars, but 196,000? Sorry, gotta pay at least 2 people to come and assess the value on top of having the tax assessor come out. Have a nice next 6 months. By the way, you need to pay the higher rate now, and wait for us to refund you. You might get it next year. Yeah, no thanks. The irony of it all is our taxes are complicated because we want them to be complicated. To quote a famous The Atlantic article, "The irony is that the tax code is complicated because we want it to be complicated. Home owners want to be rewarded for their home ownership. Parents want to get money for their kids. Everybody wants a subsidy for health care. Poor people appreciate the extra cash. Break by break, tax breaks are popular. Hugely popular. Come-and-take-this-from-my-cold-dead-hands popular. But in the aggregate, they make people furious about the tax code. They push up rates, distribute money to the rich, and make it look like people aren't paying their fair share. That's democracy for you."
    - tanderson92 10y ago
      Nobody is talking about changing one's ability to file their own taxes. But even modest proposals like having the IRS fill in all information it already knows are shot down by politicians, many conservatives. Coincidentally, many of them receive substantial campaign donations from tax prep industry.
      - 10y ago
wfunction 10y ago
You can ignore audits?
- leggomylibro 10y ago
  Sure. If you aren't self-employed, your employer already pays your taxes and you're likely owed money by the IRS. It's your choice if you don't want to collect it. If you're self-employed and not reporting income...well, that's another story. But this is terrible advice that you should definitely ignore, anyways.
  - wfunction 10y ago
    I didn't ask if you can avoid filing taxes or collecting the money you're owed; I asked if you can ignore audits, since the claim was the latter.
    - leggomylibro 10y ago
      Right, and it really depends on how serious they are. If they think you owe a lot of money, then no, you cannot ignore them. If they think you're just an asshole who can't be arsed to deal with them or is not capable of doing so, they really aren't going to do anything. Like I said, my grandfather owns a business and hasn't filed in decades. It caused my Uncle some serious consternation when he took the reigns, but he never faced any consequences in the form of being held in contempt, asset seizure, etc. Just some nastygrams every now and again. But again, this is awful advice; I was mostly being facetious. You should not just outright ignore your taxes, you should at least make a desultory effort to get SOMETHING in. But damned if I'm going to bother pulling together any more forms than are in arms/web's reach, or mail in anything more than the bare minimum.
- jedberg 10y ago
  To more specially answer your question, legally you don't have to show up to an audit. The audit is supposedly in your best interest, because it will stop the clock on racking up penalties and interest, assuming you pay them afterwards. If you just keep ignoring it, eventually you will die and your estate won't be released to your heirs until the tax man gives it a final audit, and your estate will have to pay penalties and interest back to when you failed to pay. If you're poor and/or broke, then sure, ignore an audit, because they can't get blood from a stone. :)
omegaworks 10y ago
Call your 2 Senators and Representative. Call your state's Congress people. [0] Let them know you care about this. Advocate for systems like ReadyReturn, the one proposed by Professor Bankman. [1] 0. https://whoaremyrepresentatives.org/ https://whoaremyrepresentatives.org/ 1. http://www.npr.org/2017/03/29/521954033/stanford-professor-loses-political-battle-to-simplify-tax-filing-process http://www.npr.org/2017/03/29/521954033/stanford-professor-l...
gozur88 10y ago
The IRS had huge problems with identity theft last year. They had to do something. Better to have those sorts of problems than to have them coming after you for a $20k payout to some scammer.
- leggomylibro 10y ago
  I don't care if a scammer scams the IRS out of $20K; that's their problem, not mine. If they think I'm responsible, well they can check my accounts; they're shit outta luck. And their protective measures demonstrably did not work, anyways. Requiring a tenuous chain of several checks to all succeed is ridiculous; I have plenty of ways to verify my identity, FFS.
  - timecube 10y ago
    >they're shit outta luck. This is why the new measures exist.
    - leggomylibro 10y ago
      Right, but that's not helpful if I'm unable to efile because of their "new measures." Why not allow several forms of ID, like maybe a driver's license or passport? Why is a phone number the blocking step? Who designed this system? That's how I feel whenever I am forced to interact with the IRS. Once, I went to one of their fully automated systems only to find that the entire website was only open between the hours of 9AM-5PM on weekdays! What? I'm getting real tired of this shit. It's just unreasonable to expect me to jump through all of these hoops for something that they insist is so essential. If it's essential, then make it easy! If it's not easy, then don't make me do it! Life is hard enough without the government ordering me to do busywork, and then failing to support the systems which they want me to use. Either it shouldn't be an order, or the system should work. Full stop. And I wouldn't be so upset if this horseshit bureaucracy and presumption of malfeasance wasn't starting to permeate every single aspect of modern life.
      - nightski 10y ago
matt-attack 10y ago
You must merely have your returns postmarked by the deadline. There's no impact by a failing e-filing system. Worst case, print them out, attach a check if needed and drop them in the mail.
- jedberg 10y ago
  > There's no impact by a failing e-filing system. Unless you efile after the post office closes on the night of the 18th and/or don't own a printer and/or can't get there after efile fails but before the post office closes. Or there are people like me, where my efile was rejected on April 19th. Now what do I do? If I try to efile again, it just says, "sorry, you're past the deadline". If I mail in a form it will technically be late, although I guess if they say anything I can show them my failed efile attempt...
  - nightski 10y ago
    Don't wait until the 18th? I always file my taxes in January. It's REALLY simple. Also, being late isn't that bad. You'll likely get a notice in the mail detailing out any late charges. Which for being 1 day late will be extremely minor relative to your income.
    - jedberg 10y ago
      That's great if your taxes are simple. Mine is not, and one of the critical forms didn't arrive in my email until April 16th, so I couldn't finish till then, and it affected other parts. And yeah, I know being late isn't terrible, and in fact if you are owed a refund there is no penalty at all. But it's still annoying that it was late because critical government run infrastructure was broken.
  - smkellat 10y ago
    There is a "perfection" period when things go wrong in e-filing. Granted, you shouldn't have waited until the last moment to file. That being said, you could have called 1-800-829-1040 for guidance on how to fix the problem through either fixing your e-filing or mailing it in with appropriate headings to still be counted on-time. The main line was slow on the 18th and people had very little wait time. The 19th was much the same. There were an excess of operators who were waiting for calls on the non-specialty line. Go read Publication 17 for guidance for next year.

ssttoo 10y ago

Makes me a little nervous every year whether the turbotax site will hold up as everyone is filing on the last day, juts like me. Imagine their ops folks' schedule. Arpil - December: crickets. A little bump in January as new versions of the software are released to address tax law changes. Then more crickets. And last three days: hell.

dnautics 10y ago
my bank (which is also my stock brokerage) had an outage and though i did my taxes on saturday, I had a minor panic that I wouldn't be able to complete them without having access to my stock 1099s. I can only assume that outage was due to demand-related ops.
tbihl 10y ago
IRS penalties for late filing are a portion of taxes owed. Most people don't owe anything (rather, they receive a refund), so there is no penalty.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
Consultant32452 10y ago
Turbo Tax is so prolific that when Intuit had capacity problems on filing day in 2007 the IRS extended the filing deadline for Turbo Tax users. http://www.accountingweb.com/tax/irs/irs-extends-turbo-tax-e-filing-deadline http://www.accountingweb.com/tax/irs/irs-extends-turbo-tax-e...

delecti 10y ago

Really? I get on that as soon as I can in February. Filing earlier gets me my refund as quickly as possible. Though I'm also kinda weird, in that I actually rather like the process.

dragonwriter 10y ago
> Filing earlier gets me my refund as quickly as possible. Not everyone overpays taxes in advance, so filing early provides no benefit other than moving a required task to the "done" pile sooner.
mod 10y ago
A great many folks don't get a refund. I was exactly even this year, guess my withholding was correct.

ubernostrum 10y ago

If I could have waited, I would have. Unfortunately, my return clocks in around 30 pages and has multiple attached schedules and worksheets, which means I can't just do it the day of.