The Internal Revenue Service deadline for filing your 2016 tax returns is fast-approaching. Your 2016 return is required to be filed this year by April 18, 2017. The original due date of April 15, 2017 was extended due to April 15, 2017 being a weekend and April 17, 2017 being Washington D.C. Emancipation Day. Taxpayers now have an additional three days to gather the necessary information and file their returns.
There is also another deadline approaching that many taxpayers are not aware of that could result thousands of dollars in lost refunds. The IRS grants a three-year period to file each of your returns to claim any refund you may have.
If your 2013 individual income tax return is not filed by April 18, 2017 any refund due on the return will expire (deadline is extended if you timely filed an extension on your 2013 return). This means that even if you file a return and are entitled to a refund, the IRS will consider it expired. You will not be sent the refund and it will not be applied to any back taxes you may owe.
The IRS estimates there are over one-million filers that have still not filed their 2013 income tax returns that would generate a refund of tax due. According to the IRS, this could result in as much as one billion dollars in refunds that are still unclaimed.
Based on our experience, many filers have not filed as they knew they were going to have refunds and planned on filing the return “eventually”. Others may have been waiting to receive all of the documents necessary to file, W-2’s, 1099’s, etc. or they had lost some or all of these documents. Most plan on getting to filing the return and are unaware that these refunds will expire. Other people believe that they will owe or break-even, only to later discover that they qualified for an IRS tax credit that would have resulted in a refund. We have seen taxpayers miss out on thousands of dollars in expired refunds and then still be required pay the IRS in full for back taxes owed on other periods.
Do not let the IRS keep refunds that you are rightly entitled to. This is your money and if you do not act quickly, you will miss out on it. If you are missing prior year documentation, it is possible to get information from these documents from the IRS. If you are unfiled for 2013 and would like to review whether you have a possible expiring refund, please contact our office right away for a consultation.
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