With less than a month until tax day, I'm still getting tax documents in the mail. What will happen if I turn in my taxes on time and I still don't have all the documents?
All of my normal documents (income, property tax, bank statements, etc) have all arrived on time or I am able to access them easily. But I did some commodity trading last year and I'm still getting statements in the mail. Wheat, for example, sent me a document today. It was all zeroes so there's not much to file, but I've been audited for small mistakes before, and I really really want to avoid that. I usually get my taxes done by the end of January, so this slow trickle of documents is infuriating. I'll wait until mid-April, but what if I get more documents AFTER I file? Will I get audited again? It wouldn't be my fault...
Answers ( 1 )
I know this answer is late for the tax season in which you wrote, but hopefully it will help someone else in a future one.
In the United States, all tax documents must be in the mail by the end of February. That doesn't mean you'll get them by then, or you can't be held responsible for them if they never arrive.
A number of years ago, I did some work for a company who completely forgot to send me my tax documents and since I had only helped out for a series of short-term projects I completely forgot about them by the time tax season rolled around. We filed our taxes and 2 months late a tax document showed up, for enough money that I had to refile my taxes. My accountant is super cool, and they redid and refiled the taxes right away, so I didn't have to pay a fine, but I did need to compensate them for their time. They told me that if you contact the IRS right away after you file and let them know you have to refile, it's fine, as long as you get the new filing in. Depending on the administration, the laws at the time, the amount of money, you probably won't get fined at all. It's just a matter of being as honest as possible and rectifying any mistakes as quickly as possible.
We usually get our taxes done as early as possible, so we've taken to waiting until we are sure all our documents are in before we file.