File a tax return even if you don’t have to

 

Feature Articles: Taxes

 

File a tax return even if you don’t have to

Linda Geist, Writer, Extension Communications; Story source: Andrew
Zumwalt, Assistant Extension Professor & Associate State Specialist, Personal Financial Planning,
University of Missouri Extension

 

University of Missouri Extension personal finance specialist
Andrew Zumwalt gives three reasons why you should file a tax return
even if it is not required.

 

First, you might get a refund of taxes withheld from a paycheck or
pension, Zumwalt says. Also, some tax credits generate a refund.
Examples include the

Earned Income Credit,

Additional Child Tax Credit and

American Opportunity Credit. You can learn more about these
credits at www.irs.gov.

 

Second, you lower the chance that the IRS will audit you. “If your
income is low enough that you do not need to file, then it is
extremely unlikely that the IRS would later request that you pay
tax,” Zumwalt says. “However, by just filing a simple tax return,
the statute of limitation starts to run out, and the extremely
unlikely chance that the IRS will request that you pay tax will
become a 0 percent chance, unless you committed fraud.”

 

Finally, you might discover your identity is stolen. If you are not
required to file because of a known circumstance such as being
unemployed or receiving only Social Security income, identity
thieves might use your name and Social Security number to file a
fraudulent return.

 

“I recently had an older client whose return was rejected by the IRS
because a return had already been filed for that tax year with her
listed as a spouse,” Zumwalt says. “However, her husband had died
several years earlier. Thieves had guessed that she would not file a
return and filed a fraudulent return listing her as a spouse.”

 

He helped her prepare a
Form 14039:
Identity Theft Affidavit to alert the IRS to the fraud. The IRS
issues
Identity Protection PINs
to taxpayers who have been victims of identity theft. This provides
greater security by requiring another layer of authentication when
the return is processed.

 

This story was originally published by MU Extension news:
http://extension.missouri.edu/n/2729

Last update:
Monday, February 20, 2017