The 8 dumbest last-minute tax mistakes people make

Thanks to calendar quirks, taxpayers have four extra days to file in 2017.That doesn't mean you should wait till the end to get started. Rushing through most anything lends itself to silly, last-minute errors, and taxes are no exception."It's like homework," says financial planner Keith Klein of Turning Pointe Wealth Management in Phoenix, Arizona. "You can only do so much, so long, and then you get distracted."If you're scrambling to get your taxes together at the last minute, it's easy to slip up and enter a wrong number, which can lead to even more paperwork in the form of a tax amendment or paying additional fees to the IRS."Often times people in a hurry are already under pressure and stress, so they aren't thinking clearly outside the moment that it's due," Brian Ashcraft, director of compliance at Liberty Tax in Virginia Beach, told Business Insider.Below, Klein and Ashcraft share some of the dumb, last-minute filing mistakes you'll want to avoid.SEE ALSO:The No. 1 way people mess up their taxes, according to an accountantDON'T MISS:12 terrible things that could happen if you don't do your taxes1. Mixing up your federal and state taxesTax-preparation software and e-filing can catch a lot of errors, but you're the only one who can keep your envelopes straight. "Even if you're using apps to track your spending and software to file your taxes, you can still send your check to the wrong place," Klein reminds us.2. Making basic arithmetic errorsThird-grade math has come back to haunt you at last. "I see people adding and subtracting wrong, putting decimals in the wrong places, or making negative numbers positive and vice versa," recalls Klein. "By simply neglecting a minus sign, you could turn a loss into a gain and owe taxes on that money."Ashcraft says it's also common for people to transpose, or even fat finger, numbers."Going quickly at the last minute can change a tax return drastically," he says."Like, if someone addedan extra digit into their withholdings and thought they were getting a huge refund back."The IRS says that most basic calculation errors are caught while processing, so you probably won't need to file an amendment if you added two and two up to five. However, if the IRS catches your mistake, it will issue a correction notice to let you knowand a request for more money if your errors resulted in your paying less than you owe.3. Forgetting to file extensionsApril 15 (well, April 18 in 2017) is not only the filing deadline for your taxes, it's the payment deadline, too. "Even if you're going to file an extension, you have to submit it with a payment," says Klein. "But some people plan on filing extensionsand just plain forget to do it."The IRS won't forget about your taxes. It willcharge you amonthly fee of 5% of what you owe for each month you wait to file, up to 25% of your taxes. If you haven't filed by 60 days after the deadline, you'll owe a fee of either $135 or 100% of your taxes, whichever is lower.See the rest of the story at Business Insider
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