There’s still hope for procrastinators.
Chances are you’ve waited until the last minute to file your taxes. Maybe you’re a natural procrastinator, got caught up with work deadlines or were just too busy living your life to realize how quickly April 15 was approaching.
The bad news: It’s too late to download and start using the newest app, invest in (and learn) a complicated accounting system or start scouting for a CPA in a cape to swoop in and rescue you.
The good news? There may still be some hope for you. Here’s what you need to file your taxes at the last minute.
Request a transcript from the IRS.
Individual taxpayers can request a transcript of their account history from the IRS for a particular tax year. It includes wage and income information reported on your behalf throughout the year. Misplace a W-2? Didn’t receive a 1099? Here’s where you’ll find that information. You can create an account or visit as a guest, but you’ll need to provide your Social Security number and other information either way. Transcripts can be mailed or viewed immediately online.
“It used to be that only accountants would access these transcripts, but now they’re available to individual taxpayers as well,” says Cari Weston, senior technical manager on the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants tax staff. “This can be a really helpful tool, especially if you’re worried about whether you received all of your 1099s or other declarations of income.”
Dust off last year’s return.
Unless you’ve had a major life change, windfall, marriage or divorce, or additional children, your prior year return will be a great starting point as you begin to file this year. Even if you’re self-employed or went through a bout of unemployment, having last year’s return handy may help trigger memories of deductions, missed income, expenses related to job searching and looking for new clients, and save you the hassle of recalculating your home office square footage.
Crack open the vault.
Let’s be honest: If you were the type to keep meticulous tax records throughout the year in a neatly organized accordion file, accounting software or app, your taxes would be done by now. Instead, it’s time to drag out that box of receipts, remember where you left your W-2s, download credit card statements and bank statements and comb through emails for nonprofit thank-you notes for charitable donations. But that’s just the beginning.
Calculate any windfalls.
Receive a year-end bonus? Strike it big in Vegas? Watch one of your penny stocks soar overnight? Remember, if you know about it, so does the IRS. The way you’ll have to declare it, and how much taxes you’ll pay on it, will depend on how you came into the money and the state where it occurred. In some cases, you may have to file an additional state return, especially if the windfall came as the result of an inheritance.
Make an IRA contribution.
“A lot of people will write on their return that they’ve made a contribution to their IRA, thinking they’ll do it after,” Weston says. “The problem is, they then forget to make the contribution.”
It can be a rather glaring omission, especially if you’re counting on your IRA contributions to help offset your tax burden. The solution? Make the contribution, then record the actual amount, rather than what you think you’ll make later.
Verify, then verify again.
If the devil’s in the details, then the terror’s in the typos. Weston says she’s seen returns flagged for simple things: a dependent’s Social Security number entered improperly or a zero missing on the income figure.
If you owe a penalty and provide your routing number for direct withdrawal or list that it is a savings account rather than a checking account, the IRS won’t be able to process your payment even if your bank account is entered correctly, and you’ll receive a penalty for a failure to pay.
File an extension.
Can’t quite pull it all together in time? It’s better to file for an extension and take the extra time to correctly prepare and file your return than file an incorrect return and amend it later. This is especially true for expats, who might not have received all of their information from foreign employers by the U.S. tax deadline.
“File an extension, come up with a best estimate of your tax, send the best guess of money owed, and then either take your time, or hire someone, or buy software, to file your return correctly before October,” Weston says.
Don’t forget to send it in.
Mail or e-file your return by April 15. Sounds obvious, right? You would be surprised at how often people complete their taxes, only to set them aside to celebrate, and never get back. Weston recalls a former client who got tired of waiting in line at the post office. She went home without mailing it, since she and her husband didn’t owe anything and weren’t expecting any refund. The result? Thousands in failure-to-file penalties.
Cover your tracks.
Small precautions now can save a lot of hassle later. If you used your office scanner to transfer your W-2s to an online storage system, emailed them to your accountant or sent them from a friend’s computer, shared fax machine or other type of non-secured device, go over your tracks and delete, delete, delete. This includes items from your email that may now be in a shared downloads file and anything with your personal contact or identity information, anything stored in the scanner’s memory and any items you may have meant to shred and toss into the recycling bin instead.
More from U.S. News
10 Smart Ways to Spend Your Tax Refund
9 Last-Minute Tax Tips for Procrastinators
9 Red Flags That Could Trigger a Tax Audit
A Checklist for Last-Minute Tax Filing originally appeared on usnews.com
