Comments on: 15 Reaons Why You Shouldn’t File Your Taxes the Last Minute

By: Brian Jefferies

Brian Jefferies — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 22:21:36 +0000

Great Advice! Thanks

By: Wren

Wren — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 18:08:42 +0000

For all you California residents, your refund may not be in the mail.... See Jane Stark's post This Just In... California to pay debts with Monopoly money

By: Wise Finish

Wise Finish — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 13:38:25 +0000

One reason might be that your tax preparation software doesn't work exactly as you might expect and it takes you a lot longer to do your taxes than you thought. Waiting until the last minute for anything in life is usually not something that will benefit you (unless you are "sniping" an eBay auction)...

By: Win Free Stuff

Win Free Stuff — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 23:50:25 +0000

Best thing is do not file your taxes and move to China to start a business >: ) You will never have to pay taxes unless you bring a lot of money into USA.

-Mike

By: PennySeeds.com

PennySeeds.com — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 22:20:54 +0000

45 days to verify a payment? Only the government could get away with that kind of customer service. Honestly, efiling my taxes takes only a few minutes. Unless you’re a business with lots of paperwork, and write offs I can’t see why you should need to spend a generous amount of time (or cash) to get your taxes done.

By: Neal Frankle

Neal Frankle — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 16:46:19 +0000

DUDE…You are so right!

Many years ago, I had a huge issue like this. Shortly before I was going on a long trip, I sent the IRS my payments but I did it using two different checks because I didn’t have enough funds in one account. The genius at the IRS applied one check for the current year and decided to take the other check and apply it for the next year. Needless to say, I was underpaid for that current year. To make matters worse, they sent me nasty letters but they sent them to an address that did not exist on this planet so I never got the letters. By the time I found out about the problem they had assessed penalties and wouldn’t make it right. I ended up having to pay those penalties or suffer a nervous breakdown. YIKES!!!!

By: Hedy@penny for my tyoughts

Hedy@penny for my tyoughts — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 16:35:01 +0000

Re #3, if you’re getting a refund, hasn’t the “giving the government a free interest loan” chicken already flown the coop, whether you file now or in April?

By: Jules @ Lovely Las Vegas

Jules @ Lovely Las Vegas — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 16:19:42 +0000

Hehe. I better get started on those taxes! I have all my paperwork organized and spreadsheets created for the year, but thanks for the reminder to just get on with it and get the filing of the taxes done : ).

By: tom

tom — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 15:53:31 +0000

Excellent points, when things can go wrong, they will.

Although there still will be people that will file last minute but oh well we can only convince so many to file early.

By: Liz

Liz — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 15:49:50 +0000

When you show up at an H&R Block at the last moment (like I did last year) you may find the best tax preparers have already gone on vacation and they’ll assign an inexperienced or incompetent person to do your taxes.

Last year I did my taxes around April 13. When I got home I discovered the tax preparer (an accountant with a Master’s degree) had made a couple of gross mistakes which thank God I caught but then I had to return to amend my return.

Perhaps she was overworked and stressed from all the last minute filers and that didn’t help either but the bottom line is: Don’t wait til the last minute!

Liz