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April 15 falls on a Saturday this year, which means that most last-minute tax filers have two additional days—until Monday, April 17—to mail in their income taxes to Uncle Sam. Residents of Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Vermont, and the District of Columbia have one more day on top of that.
Even if you don't think you'll be able to meet those deadlines, there's no need to panic. You can always file for an extension, by either E-file or traditional mail. The IRS expects to receive nearly 10 million requests for extensions this year.
Keep in mind, though, that an extension will only grant you extra time to get your tax forms in—not extra time to pay the money you owe. The IRS makes clear that taxpayers who don't mail in their payments by the original tax deadline will owe interest on any amount past due and may be subject to late-payment fees.
If you need an extension, use the 2005 version of Form 4868 ("Application for Automatic Extension of Time to File U.S. Individual Income Tax Return"). That will qualify you for an automatic extra six months to file your return.
Here are a few pointers as you're getting your taxes in order:
See if you qualify for the IRS-sponsored Free File service. The Free File program is a partnership between the IRS and several private-sector tax preparation websites, including giants like TurboTax and H&R Block's TaxCut. Taxpayers with adjusted gross incomes of $50,000 or less generally qualify to participate and can prepare their taxes online through one of the member sites free of charge. But first you have to visit www.irs.gov to link to the Free File partner sites.
Don't forget to fund your individual retirement account. Households have until April 17 to make their 2005 IRA contributions. The contribution limit for the 2005 tax year is $4,000. And if you're 50 or older, you can toss in an additional $500.
Don't overlook basic errors when filing your taxes. The tax code is complex, but many of the mistakes that raise flags at the IRS are simple—such as incorrect Social Security numbers and math errors in adding or subtracting columns of figures.
