If you already filed for an extension
Filing Form 4868 by April 15 pushes your filing deadline to October 15, but it doesn’t move your payment deadline. Any tax you owed was still due April 15, so interest has been accruing on an unpaid balance since then even though you’re not late on the paperwork yet.
Note: You can no longer submit Form 4868 once April 15 has passed.
If you didn’t file for an extension
If April 15 passed without an extension request, you’ll want to file as soon as you can. The failure-to-file penalty keeps growing every month that your return remains outstanding, so filing now can save you money.
What happens if you’re owed a refund
If you’re due a refund, there’s no penalty for filing late—the IRS doesn’t charge failure-to-file or failure-to-pay penalties when it owes you money. There is a hard deadline, though: refunds go unclaimed and are forfeited under the statute of limitations on refunds if you don’t file within three years of the original due date.
What happens if you owe the IRS
Two penalties can stack if you owe money and file late: the failure-to-file penalty and the failure-to-pay penalty.
| Penalty | Rate | Cap |
|---|---|---|
| Failure-to-file penalty | 5% of unpaid tax per month | 25% of unpaid tax |
| Failure-to-pay penalty | 0.5% of unpaid tax per month | 25% of unpaid tax |
If your return is more than 60 days late, the minimum failure-to-file penalty is $525 or 100% of the unpaid tax, whichever is smaller. Interest also accrues daily on top of both penalties—see the IRS’s interest charges on unpaid tax for the current rate.
How to catch up if you can’t pay in full
- Pay whatever you can now, even a partial payment, to shrink the balance that penalties and interest are calculated on.
- Set up an IRS payment plan to spread the rest over time instead of ignoring the bill.
Note: The First-Time Abatement (FTA) program has recently been replaced with the Automatic Exemption from Penalty (AEP) program for tax year 2026 and beyond. Instead of requesting an FTA, eligible individuals (those with clean tax filing and payment histories) will automatically receive penalty relief.
