UPDATED June 14th, 2018
If you haven’t filed your taxes yet you’re not alone. According to the IRS, 20-25% of Americans wait to file until the last two weeks before the April 18 deadline (this year). Let’s face it, even if you’re getting a refund, it’s never fun to sit down and take a good hard look at your financial situation for the past year. But by the time April arrives, you can’t follow Scarlett O’Hara’s example and “…think about that tomorrow”. When you file taxes, it’s all about the real numbers—which also means you’ve got to gather, and try to make sense of, all the year’s documents. If you’re anything like us, every year you swear you’re going to set up an organized filing system and every year you wind up wrestling with an overstuffed box with a hodgepodge of invoices and receipts.
Last-minute scrambling makes an already stressful situation more stressful so you’re more likely to make mistakes. IRS Commissioner John Koskinen advises: “We encourage people to use the tools and information available on IRS.gov, particularly given the long wait times we anticipate on our phone lines. As always, taxpayers can benefit from filing electronically.” To help ensure you avoid penalties and fees and get your refund quickly, here are 15 common mistakes people make when they file taxes.
