As the “Tax Day” deadline nears, it would be a good time to touch on a very important line of the Tax Code. The extension to file.
The U.S. tax code has become more complex over the years for sure. With nearly 10,000 lines of codes today. The instructions to file have increased from one page when The IRS was started in 1913 to an instruction book of almost 175 pages as of 2021.
. Did you know that April hasn’t always been the month that your personal taxes were due. At first, the US Government set aside March 1 as the deadline for filing individual returns. In 1913 the U.S. Secretary of State certified the adoption of the 16th Amendment which made the Income Tax law. Once passed and ratified the actual income tax did not become law until Congress passed the Revenue Act of 1913.
That Revenue Act, required anyone with an annual income making more than $3000 as an individual or $4000 as a married person to file a return “on or before the first day of March, nineteen hundred and fourteen.” There wasn’t much reason given for the March 1st date other than to give the new taxpayers enough time from the end of year to gather paperwork and pay their taxes..
5 years later, in the Revenue Act of 1918, lawmakers gave taxpayers an extra couple of weeks, setting March 15 as the new deadline. Congress actually passed the Revenue Act of 1918 in February of 1919, meaning that taxpayers had only a few weeks in which to complete and file their returns under the new law. At this time, the filer was not granted an extension to file. But, procedures were put into place, for filing an estimate and making a provisional payment. Until 1955 the deadline to file your taxes or request an extension was March 15. The Internal Revenue Code of 1954 established April 15 as the tax day as it exists today. Because of the complexity of the growing tax code, The IRS will grant an extension to individuals and businesses as long as the extension is filed by the deadline along with the amount of taxes owed. This will give some breathing room for the filer, tax preparers and IRS employees due to the overwhelming amount of work leading up to the deadline.
If you or your business needs help preparing your taxes and determining how much you owe..if any…The Impeccable Company can help. If you believe you need to request an extension to file, The Impeccable Company can help. Please schedule a meeting and get you on track to file. https://calendly.com/impeccableco/meetkristi
