Filing Late Michigan Tax Returns: Deadline, Penalties and Exemptions

April 15 is a huge deal each year since this is the deadline for filing and paying your annual income tax. This deadline should be treated as absolute! The government will have its due, they will have it on time, and there’s no way around it that doesn’t have serious consequences.

In past blog posts, we repeatedly stressed that filing early is always best. Any expert you ask will tell you the same thing. Yet, each year, around 25% of taxpayers wait until the last week, around 12 million file late, and another 7 million fail to file their taxes at all.

Deadline

It cannot be stressed enough – April 15, as mentioned, is the absolute deadliest deadline. Each year, accountants and other tax experts across the country get dozens of calls asking if they absolutely need to file by April 15. One such expert, Forbes’s Tony Nitti, puts it this way: “What has the IRS ever done to lead you to believe that they are in the business of making requests rather than demands?”

If you owe the IRS taxes this year, you need to file and pay your return by the deadline. If for any reason you cannot file your return by then, you still need to file for an extension, and you still need to pay an honest estimate of the taxes you owe, by the deadline.

Probably the only time you can file late without penalties is if you’re expecting a refund. Be absolutely certain however – if you make a mistake and find out you owe taxes, the same penalties will apply. Plus, why would you want to delay getting your money?

Penalties

As with most numbers we encounter when dealing with government, tax penalties and interest can be complicated. Late filing penalties are some of the heaviest the IRS can drop on your lap – at 5% of the taxes owed per month up to a maximum of 25%. In contrast, the late payment penalty is only at 0.5% of the taxes owed per month, again up to a maximum of 25%. If you’re late to file and pay, you’ll get hit with both penalties. Tax controversy lawyer Robert E. McKenzie does the math for us, showing that late filing and late payment penalties add up to over 75% of the tax owed per year.

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Exemptions

Believe it or not, 26 U.S. Code § 6651 actually provides an exemption from late penalties if your failure to pay “is due to reasonable cause and not due to willful neglect.” Reasonable cause is further described as “if the taxpayer exercised ordinary business care and prudence and was nevertheless unable to file the return within the prescribed time.”

Unfortunately, the code stops there, being quite vague and open to interpretation. For example, there was a case in the mid-80’s (U.S. vs. Boyle) involving the late payment of estate taxes. The respondent was assured by his lawyer that the taxes would be paid on time, but due to a clerical error, the taxes were paid three months late. The respondent argued that he “exercised ordinary business care and prudence” in arranging everything with the lawyer long before the deadline, and that it was reasonable for him to assume that the lawyer would take care of it. Ultimately, however, the courts ruled that “It requires no special training or effort on the taxpayer’s part to ascertain a deadline and ensure that it is met. That the attorney, as respondent’s agent was expected to attend to the matter does not relieve the principal of his duty to meet the deadline.”

For its part, the IRS lists a few examples of situations where the exemption may apply:

1. Death of the taxpayer or immediate family member, provided that the taxpayer had no one else to file the return
2. Taxpayer’s records were lost in a fire or other accident
3. Unavoidable absence or being unable to get the needed files
4. Being misinformed by the IRS itself

As you can see, you’ll probably (hopefully) never really be exempted from the penalties of filing or paying late, so it’s best to get things done early and properly. Spare yourself the headaches and trouble and let the professionals handle your taxes today! For help with all of your 2015 Michigan tax needs contact Hazzouri Accounting at 734-844-1614 or fill out our on-line contact form and we will be in touch shortly.

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