Mail extension vs Efile extension

[John of PA]

The way I see it, the IRS has now prevented us from going away the day after April 15th (17th this year). We now have to wait 5 days to be sure any returns, or extensions that we Efiled the last day, are not rejected. I went away on April 18th. When I got back 5 days later I found that one of my extensions was rejected due to the spouse's last name. I only had until April 22nd to resolve it, so my re-submission with the correct name was then rejected becasue the error was not corrected within 5 days. So this client is now going to have late filing penalties (if they owe more, which they may). I MAY BE WRONG BUT.........I suspect that if I mailed in this extension, postmarked by the 15th (17th this year) I would not have had a problem because the IRS may not had performed thier name check (or even open the envelope) until a week or 2 later. Perhaps this is an example where mailing the extension is safer than Efileing.

[S T]

Suspect you are correct

John,
I only efile the for sure extensions, not the suspect ones. Again I think it was posted somewhere in the last few weeks, to start efiling the extensions early and not wait until close to the 4/15 or in case of this year 4/17.

While efile extension has made it easy for us in some respects, it seems to have placed a greater burden on us for potential penalties for either us or the taxpayer.

So for my practice, I only efiled the for sure refund only extensions, all others were either faxed to the client or emailed to the client. If the t/p was borderline on owing, I faxed or emailed as well.

I am not sure that it is the correct process either, but if I had some questionable amounts due on the 1040 in order to cover the extension, I also had the t/p pay the estimated tax due on 4/17 (this year), in otherwords incorporate into one payment, so then I knew for sure the tax return was covered and the balance of overpayment could be moved to the ES payment of 4/17. Thinking was that the underpay if any was a lot less on the ES than it was on the underpay of the tax due with the return.

Sandy

[JG EA]

Telephone gone

I preferred the telephone filing of the extensions. I wish they still had that service. It was convenient and you got a confirmation # on the spot. Since I couldn't use that I tried efiling - I had trouble with the efile method and was too busy to get it perfected so just started mailing the extensions.

I don't efile returns on the last day or two of tax season, just in case they reject.

[John of PA]

The verdict is in

The verdict is in, it sounds like, when you are sending in an extension just before April 15th (by circumstances beyond our control); it's better to mail in the extension (certified RR). Lesson learned.

[BOB W]

Efile Extensions...

.... are like 941s, since I can't do the state at the same time I don't do them. Whatever I process has to be the same method for all gov't agencies.

[Gretel]

I don't need to file anything with my state. I e-filed only for existing clients, new clients got the coupon to mail.

I don't like the 5-day e-file waiting period, period. I try to file anything on the last day but that never works. I can only relax after the last return has been accepted.