{"id":252,"date":"2026-03-09T08:00:44","date_gmt":"2026-03-09T13:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/treecitytax.com\/blog\/?p=252"},"modified":"2026-02-18T15:40:18","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T20:40:18","slug":"tax-extension","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/treecitytax.com\/blog\/tax-extension\/","title":{"rendered":"Do You Need a Tax Extension?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Taxes are due April 15<sup>th<\/sup> every year\u2014but sometimes you need more time to get documents together or navigate a disaster or major life change. For example:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Business Entities:<\/strong> You file an individual tax return that includes \u201cpass-through\u201d entities from a business tax return filed by a corporation or partnership. If the business\u2019s tax return isn\u2019t ready in time for you to file by April 15, an extension ensures you have time to properly capture all the details in your return filing.<\/li>\n<li><strong>New Child:<\/strong> Having a baby is hard work\u2014you\u2019re probably not thinking about your tax situation while diapers and midnight feedings are your priority.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Divorce or Death of a Spouse:<\/strong> These are two major life events that can spiral into a lot of grief and executive dysfunction. If you need more time to get your thoughts (and paperwork) together, an extension can provide breathing room.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Recovery from Illness or Injury:<\/strong> Recovering from illness, injury, or burnout is another situation where your priority is on healing and resting, not paperwork.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Moving:<\/strong> Where even are your tax documents?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>A tax extension is a simple, free process that gives you six months to file your tax return by October 15, with one big, important caveat:<\/p>\n<p>An extension changes your <strong>filing<\/strong> due date, not your <strong>payment<\/strong> due date.<\/p>\n<p>You must still pay your tax due on time to avoid late payment penalties and interest charges. If you typically get a refund, the IRS generally won\u2019t charge any penalties as long as you get your return filed by the extended deadline. If you owe, you\u2019ll start to accrue late payment charges as of April 15.<\/p>\n<p>Your tax preparer can file an extension request (Form 4868) for you, or you can request an extension online or in the mail.<\/p>\n<p>More good news: Filing for an extension doesn\u2019t impact your audit risk and won\u2019t set off any red flags. The extension process is essentially automated and as long as you file your request by April 15, it will be automatically granted to extend your deadline.<\/p>\n<p>Got questions about your tax filing? <a href=\"https:\/\/calendly.com\/tmorgan-treecitytax\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Book a free consultation with us<\/a> to see if we can help!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Taxes are due April 15th every year\u2014but sometimes you need more time to get documents together or navigate a disaster or major life change.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":253,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[68],"class_list":["post-252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tax-planning","tag-tax-extension"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/treecitytax.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/erik-mclean-7lyRKyKIdJY-unsplash-scaled.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/treecitytax.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/treecitytax.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/treecitytax.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treecitytax.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treecitytax.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=252"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/treecitytax.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":254,"href":"https:\/\/treecitytax.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252\/revisions\/254"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treecitytax.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/treecitytax.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treecitytax.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treecitytax.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}