Ok, not so much of a scam, per se, but now that I’ve got your attention…
My 1040 booklet comes with a pair of IRS processing center address labels. One is colored blue and the instructions say to use that when not enclosing a check.
Suppose I owe the IRS this year. Instead of using the white label (for a return with a check), could I “accidentally” use the blue label and presumably they would process it slower?
They don’t necessarily process anything slower based on what you do. Their systems are highly automated and include error checking for this type of thing.
The correct thing for you (or anyone for that matter) to do is just file out a form for an automatic extension and you will get it. You will still owe interest back to April 16th but that would be rather small for most people and much better than the alternatives.
Slowing the process isn’t to your advantage, since it just makes your return late while the interest and fines start accumulating. The folks at the IRS ain’t idiots, and they’ve seen all the tricks.
I thought the return cannot be late if it is postmarked by April 17th.
You’d likely be ‘scamming’ yourself.
The white label packages go thru an opening process where they look for an enclosed check, extract it, record the payment for your SSN, and deposit the check.
Blue label packages are not supposed to have checks enclosed, so the machinery processing them isn’t looking for checks.
So if you enclose a check, but put a blue label on the package, you greatly increase the chances that your check will lost/damaged/left in the envelope by the mail processing machinery. Then the IRS will see your return as “filed on time, but no check received”, so you will be penalized for a late payment. And it isn’t very likely that you will be able to prove that you actually mailed a check with the return, so you’ll be stuck with the penalty.
The return will be on time but the payment will be late, as t-bonham says, and that’s what is relevant. They want the money.
If you send in the check and no forms, the IRS has no complaints. I know that from first hand experience. :smack:
Maybe I don’t understand what you’re trying to accomplish. Are you trying to get them to take as long as possible to deposit your check? Or is there something else?
I’m sure plenty of people use the wrong label by mistake, so I suspect there is a check for the check in the process. Since there will be fewer of them, it might actually get deposited sooner.
I’d suspect the best strategy would be to wait for the last minute, and hope your return is at the end of the queue.
Yeah, that’s exactly it. I figure I’d get a few days of extra interest.
Ok, I have finally decided to clamp down on this. It isn’t exclusive to this thread. I hear it all over and it makes little sense to me. It seems like many people don’t understand how slowly interest accrues.
Let’s go hog wild and give you the benefit of the doubt that you do have a legitimate stake in yearly interest.
You owe the IRS $10,000. You have that money in an interest bearing account but the money is still liquid because it has to be to pay your taxes. You have a good short-term interest rate at 3.5%. Your ingenious tactic stalls the IRS for 7 days.
That means you make $350 a year so a weeks’ worth of interest =
$6.71
Hardly worth it in my opinion. If, like many people, you are talking more like $1000 you owe then this grand scheme will net you $0.67
Interest sounds like a cool term to throw around but it isn’t much in the short-term and if you owe so much money that it would be significant then playing games with the IRS is the least of your concerns.