April 17 –
- Individual income tax returns for 2017 are due.
- 2017 calendar-year C corporation income tax returns are due.
- 2017 annual gift tax returns are due.
- Deadline for making 2017 IRA contributions.
- First installment of 2018 individual estimated tax is due.
Note: Businesses are required to make federal tax deposits on dates determined by various factors that differ from business to business.
Payroll tax deposits: Employers generally must deposit Form 941 payroll taxes (income tax withheld from employees’ pay and both the employer’s and employees’ share of FICA taxes) on either a monthly or semiweekly deposit schedule. There are exceptions if you owe $100,000 or more on any day during a deposit period, if you owe $2,500 or less for the calendar quarter, or if your estimated annual liability is $1,000 or less.
- Monthly depositors are required to deposit payroll taxes accumulated within a calendar month by the fifteenth of the following month.
- Semiweekly depositors generally must deposit payroll taxes on Wednesdays or Fridays, depending on when wages are paid.
For more information on tax deadlines that apply to you or your business, contact our office.
When an extension makes sense
While most people should file a tax return by April 17, you have the option of delaying your filing date until Oct. 15 with a tax extension.
When to file an extension
- Missing or incorrect information. If one of the forms you need to file your return has an error on it, it is often better to receive a corrected form before filing.
- Recharacterizing Roth IRA rollover amounts. If you’ve rolled funds from a traditional IRA into a Roth IRA, you may want to reverse it later if the investments lose value. This so-called recharacterization process can be done up to the extended tax-filing date of Oct. 15, and in many cases it makes sense to wait until then. Note that 2017 is the last tax year you can use the recharacterization process, which was eliminated for future years by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
- For self-employed retirement donations. The self-employed can use an extension to buy time to fund an SEP IRA. This extended time frame does not apply to traditional IRAs and Roth IRAs.
- Avoid late filing penalty. If you fail to file a tax return, two tax penalties come into play: a late filing penalty and a late payment penalty. By filing an extension, you can push out the potential late-filing penalty for another six months even if you cannot yet pay the tax.
