Less than two weeks to filing deadline; communicate please, says IRS

With less than two weeks to the federal income tax filing deadline, it’s time to get the work done.

“You need to file if you’re going to get a refund so you can get your money back,” said Michael Devine with the IRS. “You absolutely need to file if you owe more money, because the penalties for not filing when you owe, or filing but not paying start building up immediately.”

If you don’t know where to start, communicate with the IRS. They can help.

“The worst thing you can do with your taxes is nothing,” said Devine. “Especially if you owe money. If you haven’t filed for a couple of years because you owe, you need to get with the IRS and get current, because the penalties and interest just keep building up. Pretty soon, you could actually owe more in penalties and interest than you actually did in taxes.”

Also, if you haven’t filed your taxes from back in 2015, you’ll lose any refund you could have gotten if you don’t file by April 15.

“In Kansas, there’s almost 13,000 taxpayers that had more than $14 million withheld from their paycheck and they never filed a tax return to claim that refund,” said Devine. “There’s a three-year statute of limitations to claim a refund or the money goes to the general fund.”

If you have any tax questions, you can call the IRS at 800-829-1040.