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File a Tax Extension Online with Form 4868

Filing a tax extension gives you an extra six months to file your return, but not to pay your tax bill

The April 15th tax deadline is still over a month away, but for many taxpayers this won’t be long enough to get their financial ducks in a row. Thankfully, the IRS allows you to file an extension and buy yourself a little extra time.

An extension gives you an extra six months to file. Instead of being due on April 15, 2013 your tax return will then be due on October 15, 2013. E-file stays open until the October deadline so you can prepare and file your return just as you would during the season.

In order to request a tax extension you must file Form 4868 [Application for Automatic Extension of Time to File U.S. Individual Income Tax Return] by the normal tax deadline, April 15th.

An extension does not, however, give you an extra six months to pay the tax man. On Form 4868 you must estimate your tax liability and pay any balance due. If this amount is different from what you get after actually filing your taxes later in the year, you will either receive the difference in the form of a refund or have to send an extra check to the IRS. Continue reading “File a Tax Extension Online with Form 4868”

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Where’s My State Refund?

How to check the status of your state tax return

There aren’t many things in life that can make you miss the IRS but dealing with your state tax authority is definitely one of them. As byzantine as the federal tax code is, the IRS actually does a pretty good job of providing useful information on its website.

The same cannot be said of the forty-one tax authorities (nine lucky states have no income tax) responsible for administering their state’s income tax.

Trying to get any information out of a state tax website can be a frustrating experience. Most look like relics from the 1990s and they definitely did not have user-friendliness in mind when they were designed.

And yet you still need to know where the heck your state tax refund is. To make your life a little easier we’ve compiled a list of where to check your state tax refund for every state that has an income tax. Click on the link and it should take your right to the necessary page of your state’s tax website. Continue reading “Where’s My State Refund?”

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IRS Refund Problems Cause Delays

Many taxpayers are frustrated by IRS delays and a lack of information from Where’s My Refund

Going into this tax season we knew that refunds were going to be delayed. Right off the bat the IRS increased the time frame within which most people can expect their refund. Instead of the old 8-15 days it suddenly became “under 21 days.”

Then the fiscal cliff nuttiness in Congress pushed the start of the season back two weeks to January 30th. These two changes alone meant that lots of people would be getting their money 2-3 weeks later than usual.

But as the tax season has progressed, the IRS has run into even more problems. Before the start of the season this year the IRS made some changes to its system to try to cut down on instances of tax fraud and identity theft, which affected over a million taxpayers last year. This is a huge relief to anyone who’s had their Social Security number or refund stolen.

Once the season started, however, the IRS discovered some problems with this new system that required a little fine-tuning. These adjustments caused many returns to be delayed for an additional week. Continue reading “IRS Refund Problems Cause Delays”