Fall is here. In Pennsylvania it’s the beginning of leaves changing to spectacular colors and crispy, crunchy leaves all over the ground here, there, and everywhere. Of course it is also the Halloween Season for haunting and unfortunately being haunted. Being haunted by ghosts and goblins would be bad but being haunted by unresolved tax issues or inadequate tax preparedness can also be scary.

If you have not filed your personal tax returns yet that were due in April and you did not file an extension by April 15th, your personal returns are, of course, late. Now, some people might think, “Oh well, my returns are already late, I’ll just do them or have them prepared when I file this year’s returns next Spring”. Well, if you owe taxes on those returns, every day you do not file those returns is costing you money as penalties and interest is accruing on the unpaid balance. You might say with each tick of the clock your money is ticking out away as well.

But what if you don’t have the money to pay the taxes due? Your best option is to prepare and file the returns anyway even if you can’t pay the tax. You can request an installment agreement with your federal return when you file it by attaching a Form 9465 Installment Agreement Request; or you can file the return with a smaller payment than due or no payment and then in a few weeks you will receive a notice in the mail from the IRS at which time you can review your payment options. You generally can request an Installment Agreement at that time. An important note here is to be sure to open and read the notice and to respond.

If you have other unresolved tax issues that are haunting you perhaps this would also be a good time to handle them as well.

This is also a great time of year to set up or get out your tax data organizational folder and to begin gathering your information for the upcoming tax filing season. Instead of having to scramble after the busy year-end Holiday Season with putting the decorations away and beginning to gather your tax data for the approaching Tax Season in January you will already be semi-organized for tax time.



I hope you're enjoying Just the Basics on the Taxing Subject of Taxes!

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