A Refund When I File My Past Income Taxes!?

Those of us who have missed tax deadlines have a lot to do.

Sometimes, we don’t even know that we have missed them. Too often people don’t realize they owe back taxes until the IRS comes calling and sends them threatening letters. So what can you do to avoid that? How do you know when you’ve missed paying your taxes? And when you file those past income taxes, can you still get a refund?

Since the world of taxes is all too often shrouded in mystery, I’m here to provide some answers:

• How can I avoid fines on past income taxes? Well, the first way you can avoid fines is to file them on time, correctly. That can be a difficult feat without help, so it’s often a really good, sound investment to hire a tax professional to help you out. If you already think you might be liable for fines, breathe. The best way to avoid fines (or bigger fines) is to start paying those past income taxes as soon as possible. The longer you let the fines lay dormant, the bigger tax lien you’ll have to contend with
• How do I know if I’ve missed taxes? If you haven’t filed your taxes for the current year, you’ve missed them. Most people don’t realize this, but everyone needs to file past income taxes. Everyone! Even if you have no income and are on welfare and unemployment. Even if you worked 5 hours last year. You need to file. Fortunately, if the above applies to you, you are eligible for a refund. Which means filing is even more important, as you don’t want to miss out of free money just because you didn’t do a few forms!
• If I missed filing taxes last year can I still file? Of course! You can–and should–file past income taxes as soon as you possibly can. The longer you wait to file past income taxes, the worse off you are. If you’re owed money, you lose a bigger chunk of it to interest. If you owe the government money, interest makes the debt bigger. The best and most financially sound thing you can do is file. Your old taxes are always valid so the best time to start paying them off is as soon as possible.
• If I file my past income taxes, can I still get a refund? It depends! If you’re filing those old taxes within 3 years of the original date, then yes, your refund is still eligible! In fact, millions of dollars a years goes unclaimed because people who are owed money are the least likely to do their taxes–and so the most likely to miss out on free money. This is another reason to do past income taxes as soon as you can–because the longer you wait, the bigger your chances of losing your refund.

Fortunately for those who have to file past income taxes, there are a lot of reputable past tax filing services online that you can use to help get the most out of your back taxes. File soon, file today.

Photo via http://www.seniorliving.org/

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 9th, 2013 at 8:37 pm and is filed under Taxes for Prior Years. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.