By Andrew Keshner | March 26, 2024
But the deadline is coming up fast — on May 17.
This year, the clock is running out on returns for 2020, when COVID-19 turned the world upside down.
Of course, the sequence requires a taxpayer to file an income-tax return.
Get your tax forms from 2020 employers and other income sources, the IRS says. These are forms like a W-2 from an employer, 1099 forms, a Form 1098 related to mortgage interest or a Form 5498 linked to IRAs.
If it’s not possible to track down those forms, the next-best move is obtaining a tax transcript from the IRS. People can file a Form 4506-T to ask the IRS for a wage-and-income transcript, but the agency notes that written requests are going to take time to process.
Once people amass their information, they’ll have to file it. Tax preparers may charge money on a previous year’s return. The site GetYourRefund.org is another option, according to Roxy Caines, campaign director at Get It Back, a project of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities; the site, built by the nonprofit organization Code for America, is a free service to file the return, she said.
Still, people who should have received a larger stimulus-check sum but never filed a return can finally fix it now, she added.
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