My wife would prefer to pay our taxes with a cashier’s check, because she can get them for free, and that way we don’t have to worry if, for some reason, they decide not to cash our check until some random date in the future.
Yes.
Thank you. And just to clarify: Federal and the state of Kansas?
I’ve paid my federal taxes with a cashier’s check. I have no idea about the State of Kansas but I can’t think of any reason why they wouldn’t take one. A check is a check. And unlike a personal check, a bank check won’t bounce (barring certain unthinkable catastrophes.)
Okay, I’ll do that. (If Kansas wants to complain, at least they can’t say I didn’t try.) Thanks.
What makes you doubt that any taxing authority would accept a cashier’s check?
But wouldn’t one of the advantages of a personal check be that you know for certain it was cashed?
How would you know if a cashiers check was lost or destroyed?
The bank keeps records of when/where the check was deposited/cashed/tendered.
Why are you in a hurry to surrender your money any sooner than necessary? I’d LOVE it if they credited my tax account but lost my check.
Silly aside: I had a business unemployment return once where I sent in the required quarterly payment of $51. Somehow the bank the Feds used deposited the check as $0.51 & credited my tax account accordingly. Fortunately, this was back in the day when you got your physical checks back, so I had a high fidelity original which showed I’d paid the correct amount by the correct date.
It took 2 years to unscramble the $50.49 underpayment, get the record cleaned up & get all fees, penalties, & interest waived. I thought it was sorta fun, but it did take a lot of time. I have 30 pages of papers & forms from them and spend several hours on the phone running up their 800 bill.
Had I used a cashier’s check I’d have had less proof, not more, of their goof.
Has there ever been a worry that governments hold income tax payments until random days in the future? I thought that they cashed them same day they arrived, and then compared the amount to the return later. Anybody know for sure?
Actually, you would have had the same proof. The bank of issue can always get a copy of the negotiated cashier’s check (more likely an offical check these days, as not many banks offer cashier’s checks any more). You would, however, have had to contact the bank to get the copy as opposed to it coming to you in your statement.
Just for fun:
Cashier’s check - drawn on the bank where you bought it, the funds come from a demand deposit account (DDA) maintained by the bank. A DDA is the same type account as your private or business checking.
Official check - may be drawn on the bank where you purcahsed it or another, generally larger, bank with which your bank contracts. The funds come from a general ledger (GL) account, which from an accounting standpoint is very different from a DDA.
Certified check - You write a check to a third party, then take it to your bank. The bank stamps the check “certified funds” and takes that amount out of your account. When the check is presented the bank pays it out of an account where it put the funds for safekeeping (very rare these days).
Letter of Credit - An authorized bank official signs a letter that says any check you write from the listed account(s) will be guaranteed good up to X amount if presented within Y time frame.