Our patio’s potted daisies enjoying the result of an April shower. (Photo by Kay Bell)
Hello, April! We love it when you roll around.
We welcome your consistently warmer weather (yay shorts and T-shirts), spring showers for newly blooming thirsty flowers, and baseball (no rain delays, please!).
But April also is a month we dread.
The main reason for our mixed April feelings is the annual due date for our annual tax returns. Plus, April 15 is the deadline for some other tax tasks.
So, with Tax Day looming, here are six tax moves to make this April.
1. File your 2025 tax return. Millions of taxpayers wait until the April filing deadline to complete their returns. And you still have plenty of time to do the job right.
The easiest way for do-it-yourself filers to finish up their 1040s is to go digital. And you might be able to use some free tax preparation and e-filing options.
There is, of course, Free File, the no-cost online tax program offered by the Internal Revenue Service and its tax software industry partners in the Free File Alliance. This year, eight software companies return to offer their programs to taxpayers with adjusted gross income (AGI) of $89,000 or less, regardless of filing status.
If you don’t qualify to use a Free File software program, check out the program’s Fillable Forms option. It’s not as easy as the online tax packages. You have to enter your tax data on the IRS forms yourself, with no step-by-step guidance or automatic transference of information to other forms.
But like its main Free File companion, Fillable Forms also is free.
Shameless plug alert. The ol’ blog’s monthly tax tips can help. January’s tips page has links to subsequent monthly collections. You also can find tips on the special Tax Tips (what else?) page.
And as for the filing process, you can find more on other free or low-cost electronic tax filing options in my post 5 free tax prep and filing options, and a move to restore a sixth.
2. Get more time to finish your taxes. If you just can’t finish your return, be it by hand or electronically, by April 15, get more time. The IRS is happy to give you six more months to complete your annual tax task.
You just have to do two things.
First, file your IRS Form 4868, Application for Automatic Extension of Time To File U.S. Individual Income Tax Return. Second, send the form and any tax you owe to the IRS by April 15.
Filing an extension request will get you until Oct. 15 to submit your accurate tax paperwork. But note the payment due requirement. If you don’t send any tax due or, per the form’s instructions, “as much as you can” when you file Form 4868, penalties and interest will start adding up.
A filing extension (with the appropriate payment) is a win-win for both time-crunched taxpayers and Uncle Sam’s tax collector. The IRS would much rather get your extension request by Tax Day than deal with an error-ridden return you submitted in a last-minute filing frenzy.
3. Pay, or make arrangements to pay, any 2025 tax you owe. Since you must pay your tax due even without filing, now is the time to explore ways to cover the amount you owe if it’s unexpectedly large.
One option is paying your tax bill over time. The IRS itself offers a variety of payment plan options.
Installment payments will cost you a little more in interest and, in some cases, application fees, and you’ll avoid late- or non-payment penalty charges. More importantly, a payment plan will keep the IRS from coming after you for tax evasion.
Another payment option is to put your due tax on a credit card. This could be a good move if you earn rewards for charges. But note that if you can’t pay off your plastic balance quickly, you’ll face interest charges that typically are much higher than IRS installment plans or some private lenders charge.
4. Contribute to (or open) an IRA. The IRS offers tax breaks for several retirement plans.
Even better, in some cases the money you put into them can help cut your tax bill, most notably as a traditional IRA deduction on your current return and/or the Saver’s Credit, which is a dollar-for-dollar offset of any tax you owe.
Best of all, there’s still time to put money into IRAs, both Roth and traditional versions, and have the contribution count toward the prior tax year. Tax law allows you to add to these accounts up through the next year’s Tax Day. Again, that’s April 15 this year.
As noted, if it’s a traditional IRA, you might get an immediate tax deduction. But you might find a Roth IRA, which doesn’t qualify for a tax deduction since you put already taxed money into this retirement plan, is a better move for you.
Regardless of which IRA you choose, maxing out your contributions each year can make a big difference to your nest egg when you eventually retire. Take advantage of the grace period that runs through April 15 and put in more IRA money.
5. Make your first 2026 estimated tax payment. I know, estimated taxes are a major pain in the backside. But they are required to be paid on income that’s not subject to withholding.
If you miss one of these four payments, or pay too little, and you could face underpayment penalties and interest charges.
So, as you’re working on your 2025 taxes, make sure you run your expected 2026 tax year numbers, too. Then make the first of these four extra tax payments for the current tax year on April 15.
Yep, estimated tax for the first quarter of the year is due on the same April day as your tax filing deadline for the previous tax year. I know. Conveniently annoying.
6. File your 2022 tax return. Yes, this post has discussed several tax times shifts available in April. And this tax move’s 2022 reference is another, not some extra weird tax time warp.
Every year, millions of taxpayers fail to file tax returns even though they are due refunds. But they have limited time in which to claim this money.
In 2022, around 1.3 million taxpayers didn’t file 1040s, leaving Uncle Sam holding their portions of a total $1.2 billion in uncollected refunds.
But here’s the catch. That limited claiming period ends three years after the original returns were due. So, for 2022 filings that should have been made in 2023, the ability to collect the old refund ends on April 15, 2026.
If nonfilers from back then don’t get the old 2022 tax paperwork to the IRS by this coming Tax Day, their three-year window to collect the unclaimed refunds closes. After that date, the U.S. Treasury gets to keep their money.
Refunds for 2022 are available to eligible taxpayers in every state and the District of Columbia. The median refund amount is $689, but taxpayers in more than half of the U.S. states could get a larger median amount.
Regardless of the potential refund amount or why these individuals didn’t file three years ago, they are all facing the same deadline now. If you are one of them, don’t forfeit your 2022 tax refund to Uncle Sam. File for it by April 15.
I know, it seems like a lot to take care of, especially in the first half of April. You want to get out and enjoy the spring days.
But if you can clear up these tax tasks, or get more time to file your 2025 return, early in April, then you can enjoy the rest of the month without any tax worries.
