Procrastination Doesn’t Pay

As the October 15th, final filing deadline looms, people are scrambling to file their tax returns. Luckily, with e-filing options, we can wrap it up at 11:59 pm on October 15 and still file on time, right? Oh, the perils of procrastination.

We all know the risks of waiting until the last minute – anything could go wrong and you have no time to fix it. What if your computer dies? Or your internet goes out? Or you just can’t find that one last receipt? Remember in 2007 when tax-preparation software form Intuit, TurboTax and a few others all malfunctioned? A million things could derail the tax filing train. And just to mix things up a little this year, the IRS is having technical problems of their own.

As Kay Bell of Don’t Mess With Taxes reports, the IRS shut down e-filing system for a few days to run some standard tests. Only, when they tried to start it up again, they couldn’t get the system back up and running. The IRS says this shouldn’t cause a problem as their older backup system should just pick up the slack. But, are you willing to risk late-filing penalties?

Perhaps this can be a little object lesson in proper planning so you’re not rushing to file?
Good luck to all those taxpayers who filed for extensions, let’s hope the IRS fixes this problem and you file with no trouble at all.

(hat tip: Don’t Mess With Taxes)