What should you do if you need help with your taxes?
After a busy filing season, many households are trying to manage a difficult question. What happens if April 15 comes and goes, and you still have unanswered questions about your taxes? It’s a relevant question. About one-third of all taxpayers wait until the last minute to file their taxes, and millions more do their taxes within the two-week window of April 15.
Each year, many of those households will approach the deadline and realize that they don’t fully understand how to do their taxes. Maybe they’re not sure about a deduction, maybe they have questions about some form of income. With a dense and layered tax code, not to mention jurisdiction-specific obligations across states and municipalities, this is a field so complicated that accountants and lawyers dedicate their entire professional lives to the issue. So it makes sense that you might have some questions.
And the IRS may not be able to help. Agents can be difficult to get on the phone and, when available, they only answer questions about process and filings. They will not help with questions about preparing your taxes themselves.
So, whether you’re trying to figure out 2024 taxes after the fact or you’re thinking of how to improve your process for next year, what should you do if you need help but can’t get it? Here’s what to know.
You can also use this free tool to match with vetted, fiduciary financial advisors if you need help navigating tax laws and the IRS.
First, File for an Extension Or Amendment
Even if you think your taxes are (or might be) wrong, file anyway.
The IRS provides two main mechanisms for taxpayers who don’t know their correct taxes by the annual deadline: filing for an extension or filing an amendment. Both let you address questions or issues with your tax return, but both still require you to file something by April 15.
With an extension, you file Form 4868 to request an extension of time to file your tax return. This generally gives you until October 15 to file a completed return, so you don’t have to include one with the extension form on April 15. You do, however, need to file the extension request on time. You also need to pay estimated taxes, and the IRS will penalize you if your estimated payment is more than 80% less than your final tax bill. This allows you to avoid filing a significantly incorrect return, although you still need to know enough about your finances to make a ballpark estimate. If you overpay, you will receive a refund when you file your completed tax return in October.
With an amendment, you first file a completed tax return by April 15. Then, later, you file Form 1040-X, which allows you to correct any inaccurate or incomplete information on your original filing. In this filing you can claim a refund if you overpaid in April, or you can include an additional payment if you underpaid. As with an extension, the IRS will typically penalize you if you paid less than 80% of your correct tax bill.
In all cases, the penalties for error or underpayment tend to be modest. And the IRS will often work with taxpayers to mitigate and occasionally waive penalties in cases of good-faith error.
While the IRS will charge interest and penalties for taxpayers who do not pay their full tax bill, it reserves severe penalties for households that don’t file a tax return at all. The longer you wait, the higher these penalties can grow. You can always correct a mistake on your taxes, but first you need to file those taxes.
Second, Report All Income
You can mitigate or eliminate many problems by accurately reporting your money.
One under-appreciated feature of the IRS is that the tax agency generally appreciates how complicated the tax code is. Severe penalties such as audits and investigation are typically reserved for households that hide income, misreport their finances, or that don’t file a tax return at all.
So, get ahead of these problems. Even if you aren’t sure about your tax obligations, make sure to accurately report all income. If you take any deductions or credits, accurately reflect the amount and nature of all spending.
From there, you might get it wrong. You might miscalculate your taxes based on your income, say, or incorrectly claim certain spending as a deduction. However, as long as the information you have provided is accurate and complete, the IRS will typically treat this as the good-faith error that it is.
The rule of thumb is this: As long as the IRS can read your tax returns and get all the information they need to tell you what you owe, they will generally treat the matter as a miscalculation. If they think you are hiding information, that’s when the problems start.
Consider consulting a financial advisor if you’re interested in speaking to someone about your personal situation.
Consider Some IRS Resources
From here, look at the nature of your problem.
If your question is procedural, an IRS agent can often help. This means that your question must relate to filing, paperwork or other process matters. IRS agents can’t answer questions about your specific tax situation. However, if you need to know general matters or have a question about how to file your taxes, taxpayer services can be invaluable. You can contact the IRS either by calling their main line or by scheduling an appointment in person with one of the agency’s various offices. Be prepared for significant wait times.
Other households can contact the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance program. This program offers free assistance with tax preparation, meaning that it can help you with substantive tax questions that IRS agents cannot. It is generally available to the following households:
- Those making less than $67,000 per year
- Those over the age of 60
- Those with qualifying disabilities
- Those with limited English
Seek Third-Party Help Situationally
Beyond that, for relatively straightforward tax matters, third-party a software solution can often get you to good enough. Programs like TurboTax or H&R Block can handle most common tax situations, even for small business owners and the self-employed. If your problem is relatively small dollar-value, typically less than $10,000, or is low-complexity, then software can work. This solution will generally cost you several hundred dollars.
For larger or more complicated tax matters, software is generally a bad option. If you have a lot of money at stake, typically more than $10,000, or if you have a complicated or ambiguous tax situation, then you generally should not rely on tax software. In these cases, you will want to hire a professional to help you manage the issue. Depending on the exact nature of your problem, this can mean an accountant, a financial advisor, or a tax attorney.
Most importantly, consider hiring a professional if you need to interact with the IRS about a substantive matter. Professionals are much better suited for contacting the IRS directly, given that they have both time and contacts to do so. If your situation requires questions and answers, or if you have significant ambiguity, a professional may be your best bet.
What Is the Problem?
Finally, what caused all of this difficulty in the first place?
Taxpayer service is the agency term for general customer support. This is the group you reach when you call to ask a question, anything from help filing your taxes to requests for an installment plan. Over the past 15 years, Congress has decimated the ranks of this department.
The reason goes back to politics. When the Barack Obama Administration passed its signature health care law in 2009 (the Affordable Care Act, or “ACA”), it made taxes the primary mechanism for the law’s various benefits and requirements. In response, Republican opposition led several rounds of cuts to the IRS’ budget, which weakened enforcement of the ACA by forcing the IRS to reduce associated headcount. In total, between 2009 and 2016, Congress cut the agency’s budget by approximately 20%.
However, the IRS broadly has two categories of mandate, known as discretionary functions and required functions. Discretionary functions are areas where the agency can choose its level of engagement. Required functions (sometimes called “statutory duties”) are services the IRS must perform if at all possible. So, whenever the IRS loses money, it must take the cuts from its discretionary functions.
Like collecting income taxes, Affordable Care Act oversight and enforcement were written as statutory duties. No matter how much Congress slashes the IRS’ budget, it must attempt to distribute and collect funds associated with the ACA. This led to a feedback loop. Congress cut the IRS’ budget to reduce ACA enforcement. But the IRS couldn’t reduce ACA enforcement. So, with enforcement undiminished, Congress cut the IRS’ budget again.
Those cuts fell on discretionary functions, most prominently audits and taxpayer services.
Beginning in this era, the number of annual audits collapsed. This reduction was focused on high-income/high-net worth taxpayers, who have the most complicated taxes and (as a result) the most resource-intensive audits.
Taxpayer services, never generous, also fell through the floor. At the low point in 2022, the agency was answering just 10% of phone calls from taxpayers. Wait times for people who did reach an agent exceeded 30 to 60 minutes, leading the agency to establish a practice of automatically hanging up on people who had been on hold for too long.
The IRS also established a policy against answering substantive tax questions on the phone. Filers can call taxpayer services to ask process questions, meaning questions about how to file or the status of their filings, but they cannot get help with questions about the taxes themselves. Some in-person IRS centers do offer this service, but it is intermittent.
Over the past two years, some of those problems have begun to ease. During the Joe Biden Administration, Congress passed a sprawling bill known as the Inflation Reduction Act. Among many other provisions, this bill provided for a significant increase to IRS funding. This has allowed the tax agency to increase its staffing, to the point where that average wait times to speak with an IRS agent have dipped to 3 minutes. About 32 percent of everyone who calls speaks with an agent, still a small minority but triple the previous numbers.
But the changes continue.
Taxpayer services was subject to recent firings and budget cuts at the IRS. Congress has cut approximately $60 billion from the tax agency’s funding since January 2025. The Donald Trump Administration, particularly through Elon Musk’s DOGE team, has laid off approximately 7,000 workers, most of whom were recent hires in IRS’ expansion of taxpayer services and audits. The Trump Administration has announced that it intends to continue layoffs, and may ultimately lay off up to half of the agency’s 90,000 person workforce.
So, taxpayers should expect less help going forward from the IRS. And remember, one option is to reach out to a financial advisor who may be able to help you navigate your situation.
The Bottom Line
What should you do if you don’t know how to file your taxes? The first thing to do is always file by deadline. Don’t miss the April 15 deadline, because you can always file for an extension or an amended return if you think your taxes are wrong. Beyond that, consider some options for getting help based on what you need.
Tips On Tax Planning
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