Walk With Money » Failure

How to File a Federal Tax Extension

Robert Wilkinson — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 01:20:07 +0000

April 15 looms on the horizon. There may be any number of reasons that you are not prepared to file a tax return, from not having your dividend statements back, to waiting to get a home buyer tax credit, to straightforward procrastination. No matter your reasons, you can actually file for an extension. Any taxpayer is eligible to get a six month extension for filing a tax return. You have to file for the extension by April 15, and then you will have until October 15 to get your documentation together and file your actual return.

Photo by alancleaver_2000 via Flickr

Filing an extension is a good idea if you don’t think you’ll be able to get your return together by April 15. The penalty for a “failure to file” can be quite hefty. As long as you file your extension paperwork — it’s only on page! — by April 15, you can avoid this penalty.

You still have to pay what you owe by April 15!

Be warned, though, that filing for an extension doesn’t get you another six months to actually pay your taxes. You are required to estimate how much you owe, and submit payment by April 15. The IRS starts charging interest from April 16, so it’s a good idea to pay something. Any tax refund you are entitled to will, as you might have guessed, be mailed to you after you file your return in October.

Filing Your Tax Extension

It is fairly easy to file a tax extension these days. You just need to fill out Form 4868.

If you use tax preparation software, like Tax Cut or TurboTax, it’s easy to file your tax extension. These programs have the appropriate forms, and the ability to allow you to send in the form electronically, or print out your completed form and then mail it in. If you have a professional prepare your taxes, he or she can usually file your tax extension electronically on your behalf.

Even without tax preparation software, you can still file your Form 4868 electronically using the

The Simple Dollar Time Machine: January 9, 2010

Robert Wilkinson — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 09:20:23 +0000

Many newer readers of The Simple Dollar haven’t been exposed to the hundreds of great articles in the archives of the site, so this is a weekly series that highlights the five best posts from one year ago this week, two years ago this week, and three years ago this week. I call it … the Time Machine.

One Year Ago (January 3 – January 9, 2009)
Seven Huge Financial Mistakes I Made During My College Career This was basically a letter to several members of my family who were about to enter college.

Frugality and Binge Buying The real key is honesty with yourself. Admitting that you made a mistake and striving to figure out why you made it – and how to fix it – is how to turn a failure into a success.

A Mother’s Gifts Here are some reflections on the lessons that my mother taught me as I was growing up (and as an adult, too).

Debt Reduction and Debt Elimination Programs: What’s the Catch? Often, they’re just selling you information that you can already get for free on sites like The Simple Dollar.

When Your Financial State Improves, Do Your Frugal Standards Change? All of life’s choices aren’t based on maximizing the bottom dollar. There are a lot of factors in our lives that help us to make the choices we do.

Two Years Ago (January 3 – January 9, 2008)
When Is Frugality Stealing? This was one of my favorite discussions ever on The Simple Dollar.

How Much Frugality Is Too Much Frugality? When does being frugal cross the line into being cheap? For me, it’s in interactions with other people. I don’t mind drinking tap water as my primary beverage, but I would consider it rude (and cheapskate-ish) to offer nothing but tap water to guests in my home.

The Value of Cultural Literacy Being culturally literate has a lot of cash value. It makes conversation substantially easier, and conversation leads to the building of relationships which can in turn help you out substantially when it comes to doing home repairs, finding a job, and countless other things.

Practicing What You Preach: Should A Personal Financial Writer Be Expected To Follow Their Own Message? I think that’s a tricky question, and it was echoed for me later on when I discussed my purchase of a Prius for many of the reasons mentioned in this article.

What Color Is Your Parachute? The Flower Diagram I consider this to be an invaluable job evaluation tool. In fact, I wound up using it myself as part of my decision-making process to leave my former career and jump into writing.

Three Years Ago (January 3 – January 9, 2007)
Should ...

Seven Secrets of Good Presentations

Robert Wilkinson — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 00:20:24 +0000

Over the last few months, I’ve given a small pile of presentations related to The Simple Dollar, my upcoming book, and other topics. Along the way, I’ve learned several things about what constitutes a good presentation and what constitutes a failure. Here are the seven key things I’ve learned, which you can take away to make your own presentations better.

1. Lots of words on the screen is bad. If you have a lot of words on the screen, people stop paying attention to what you’re saying and start reading the words on the screen. I suppose this is fine if you don’t want people to pay any attention to you at all, but that’s usually the opposite of the effect you want.

I had this problem with my early presentations, where I loaded down slides with words. As I spoke and looked out over the crowd, I could see a large number of them quite obviously tuning me out and reading the words on the screen. Then, when they were finished and tried to tune back into what I was saying, they had lost the thread and many of them became bored.

Try to stick to at most ten words on the screen per slide.

2. Instead, choose pictures that complement what you want to say. Instead of thinking of the information your slides can present, think of how the slides can complement what you’re saying.

For example, if I mention my children in a presentation, I’ll often include a slide that’s just a large picture of my children at play. No words, no anything. It doesn’t detract at all from what I’m saying, it merely complements and illustrates it and brings my words to life.

When you make an outline of what you want to say, consider what sort of visual image will match each idea. Then, find an image that matches that idea and actually show that image to the crowd, bringing the idea to life in their mind much as it is in your own.

3. Speaking of outlines… never forget you’re telling a story. A presentation is storytelling, pure and simple. If you look at your presentation as simply a way to convey lots of information, you’re missing out on why you’re doing it.

For me, the story is obvious – I just tell my life story. I talk about my many mistakes and how I recovered from them. It’s largely a chronological story – and it’s a visual story ...