In this video Ryan Vaughn explains what to do after missing the 2023 tax filing deadline (April 18 for personal and C‑Corp returns, March 15 for S‑Corp and partnership returns). He clarifies that an IRS extension only postpones the filing of the return, not the payment due date, so any tax owed must still be paid by the original deadline to avoid a late‑payment penalty. He distinguishes the two penalties—late filing (avoided by filing an extension on time) and late payment (incurred if tax isn’t paid by the deadline). Vaughn advises paying the full amount if possible, otherwise making the largest payment you can and estimating the balance if you’re waiting on information such as K‑1s. For balances that cannot be cleared within 12 months, he suggests exploring an IRS installment plan. He also recommends proactive cash‑flow management: set up a dedicated “tax” bank account and regularly transfer funds from profit‑and‑loss statements to ensure funds are available when taxes are due. Finally, he urges viewers to consult an accountant if they’re unsure, and ends with a call to like, subscribe, and share.
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I missed the tax deadline, now what? The tax filing deadline for personal returns and C-Corp returns was April 18th this year. And as a reminder, the filing deadlines for S-Corporations and partnerships was March 15th. So definitely missed that. So the IRS, on a filing deadline, they either expect to see your tax return Or an extension. So if you didn't file your tax return yet, hopefully you at least filed an extension. If you filed an extension and you don't owe any money, then you're actually fine. You have 6 months. Now why do I say it that way? Because if you file an extension and you owe money, the IRS is going to charge you penalties. The way it works is that the extension Is to extend when you report your tax return. The extension is never, and I say that that way because it comes up all the time, and even when it comes up, people always ask me again. The filing deadline, the extension is to never extend the payment due. That is always due on the filing deadline. Which was April 18th this year. So if I owed money, even if I file an extension, I still owe the money to the IRS by the 18th, and if I don't pay them by the deadline, then they have the right, which they always take, to penalize me interest and penalties. Now there are 2 penalties that we're interested in avoiding in this scenario. There's the Late filing penalty, and then there's the late payment penalty. If you file the extension on time, then you will get rid of the late filing penalty. But if I owe money and I didn't pay it, then there will be a late payment penalty. So that's how extensions work. All it is doing is extending when I file the actual return, not when the tax was due, which is by— April 15th. The April 18th deadline. So if you do owe taxes, we recommend that you pay what you can. If you can pay all of it right now, then do that. If you're not sure what you owe, it's super common for accountants who have clients who want to extend because they're waiting on K-1s, or maybe they're just procrastinators. It's okay, we all have our things. So if you are waiting on some sort of information, or you just haven't gotten your stuff, to the accountant yet, then it is common to do an estimate. You can, you'll probably have some idea of what the K-1 is, or you have your information and the accountant could run an estimate. A lot of times that is an extra charge, but their extra charge potentially can be a lot less than the IRS's interest and penalties that they're going to charge you for missing owing. So if you can pay everything now because you owe taxes, please do that now. If you can't afford to pay everything now, we recommend you pay as much as you can. And look, if you can pay that off within the next 12 months, I recommend just paying off what you can when you can until it's paid off. If you think it's going to take more than 12 months because something happened, Maybe there's some mismanagement of cash, maybe some emergency happened and you needed to use cash for something else. For whatever reason, you don't have the money to cover the tax and you think it's going to take more than 12 months, you might want to look at doing an installment plan. This is where you can go to the IRS and say, look, I owe this much money, I need to spread it out over this many months, and this is what I can pay every month. It's a little bit more involved and that's not the purpose of this video. But ask your accountant about a potential installment plan if you think it's going to take you more than 12 months to pay off the tax that you owe. Look, I don't want to instill panic now that you maybe are learning for the first time that the IRS will charge you penalties if you owe tax, even if you filed an extension. So don't panic, but there should be some urgency to getting this figured out. If there's Any sort of thing, items, knowledge you need that's the, that you need more clear, reach out to your accountant. They should be able to help you with this. If you're DIYing it, maybe it's time to reach out to an accountant if you're concerned about this situation. And a last note on this, if you find that every year you're filing an extension And you owe money, but you don't pay it by April 18th or 15th, depending on the year and the deadline. If this is a common situation for you, you may want to consider implementing some things throughout the year to manage your cash. So at a minimum, there's a really simple thing you can do that I'm going to pull out of our overall comprehensive cash flow management system, but this one thing from that system could help you. Create a new bank account, call it tax, and twice a month, no more than once a week, twice a month. And if you don't want to do that, at a minimum once a month, sit down, look at your profit and loss statement, transfer some money from your other bank account into the tax account, set the money aside in little chunks throughout the year, and you will find that you always will have enough money to cover taxes come tax tax time. So if you've missed the deadline, hopefully you filed an extension. If you haven't, you may want to consider filing your return as soon as possible. If you owe money, get that paid as soon as possible because the extension does not protect you from late payment penalties or interest, okay. Remember, the IRS is out to get you, so this is one of those areas that they have a A lot of black and white, how they can take more money from you, and let's not have— let's not pay them anything more than we are legally obligated to do. And remember to like and subscribe to our channel, to the podcast, share with your friends. We are trying to provide as much value as possible, and we want as many people to know about it as possible. Remember, the IRS sucks.
