FML partner Andrea Harrington was quoted in an article in Success Magazine about business and personal tax extensions. Tax Day is rapidly approaching and many people out there still haven’t made an appointment with their CPA, let alone begun the process of filing their taxes.
An extension can be requested by filling out IRS Form 4868 prior to the April 15 deadline. This will give people until Oct. 15 to file their taxes without facing a penalty. But there are a number of nuances to consider.
Andrea on how to know what to pay prior to filing:
“[Do] your best to compile the information that you have,” says Andrea Harrington, CPA and partner at Fiondella, Milone & LaSaracina LLP, and use that to estimate. You can also use tax software or give the information to your tax preparer to calculate an estimated tax.
On K-1 investment tax forms:
Schedule K-1 forms are tax documents that report an individual partner’s, shareholder’s or beneficiary’s share of income, deductions, credits and other items from certain businesses. These forms are used by pass-through entities, which do not pay income tax themselves but pass the tax responsibility to their members. Pass-through entities include partnerships and S corporations.
Partnerships and S corporations can request a six-month extension, moving the deadline to Sept. 15 for calendar-year entities.
K1 returns tend to be more complex, taking longer to complete, says Harrington. “We do get a flurry of them in August for our clients,” she says.
On monitoring audit results:
“If you are under audit, you might want to wait to see what the results of the audit are,” says Harrington, “in case there are positions that you’re currently taking that are challenged or [reversed].”
For example, during an audit, the IRS might challenge your auto use percentage if you can’t substantiate the business use percentage, she says.
On anticipating changes to legislation:
Another reason to file an extension is to see if there’s any pending legislation that could change your filing position, Harrington says. “The federal government made some changes to research and development capitalization policies a number of years ago, and there was a lot of legislative buzz that caused people to extend to see if the ability to currently deduct these costs would be reinstated,” she says.
It didn’t happen, but if it had, the people who filed tax extensions may have been able to take advantage of that change. (The American Innovation and R&D Competitiveness Act of 2025 was reintroduced in March of this year but is not likely to become law in time to affect this year’s tax return.)
