> Guess what happens when I'm late on a mortgage payment! It depends on how late. If it's not too late, generally nothing. If it's a little late, a penalty o

> Guess what happens when I'm late on a mortgage payment! It depends on how late. If it's not too late, generally nothing. If it's a little late, a penalty of a few % > And it's even worse if I'm late filing a tax return, or heaven forbid, late on a tax payment. If you don't owe taxes, then you don't even need to file. If you overwithhold, there's no penalty for not filing. If you don't, the the penalty is like a few % of the owed tax, per month late. Similar with nonpayment. And it caps at like 40-50% extra of the owed tax, if you're extremely late (though there's interest too). So actually it's not that bad. But an F on a single paper also isn't that bad either.