We usually recommend that taxpayers make their tax payments online to the IRS and states. Here are the benefits, but a few caveats to watch out for:
Benefits: When making payments online, your payments are generally credited on the day that you make the payment. Additionally, you can clearly apply your payments to a prior tax year, current tax year, or for estimated tax payments. This helps to minimize errors when the IRS receives your payments, such as applying them to the wrong tax year and the date the payment was made.
Beware of these issues: Recently, we discovered that it is imperative to use the primary taxpayer’s social security number when making payments online to the IRS, otherwise your payment may sit in limbo and not be applied to your account. Other tips include:
- Make sure that you specify the correct year that a payment should be applied to.
- Double-check your banking or credit card information to ensure that your payment actually gets processed.
- Save the confirmation that you paid your taxes as a pdf document or print it out
Overall, we have seen a much lower number of issues when clients make their payments online. Just make sure to adhere to the tips above.
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