Sure, I won't disagree that one should (ideally) have an emergency fund and "plan accordingly."
I suppose you can add filing early to the list of best practices too. I would agree about not waiting to file until 11:59pm on April 15. However, I would have thought filing the day before (48 hours or so early--which I did myself) was a sufficient buffer, but I guess people will say you should file 5, 10, 30, days early.
At some point though, you can't reasonably guard against every conceivable possibility. To me, the possibility of paying double is an unreasonable contingency to plan for. In fact, people were hitting the "e-file" button with HR Block 50-100 times over the last 48 hours prior to the deadline. What if each of those failed attempts actually went through after-the-fact? Should filers be prepared to pay 100x their actual tax liability? Even if you did have 100x your liability lying around in an emergency fund, don't forget that those funds almost certainly wouldn't transfer over in time to help the OP in his situation (maybe they would have cleared in time, if he attempted a transfer on 4/15 and hoped the transfer completed before the IRS received the check in the mail). My point being, it wouldn't have even been enough for the OP to had those funds "available"; he would have had to have had them already transferred into his checking account in some multiple of his tax liability.
And again, I'm not sure there is any "move" for the OP to make at this point; the damage is likely already done.
I was not aware of the 2% bounced-check fee. That seems a tad harsh for innocent "mistakes" (which I'm not even sure this is). But glad to see there is a mechanism for seeking abatement, and if ever there was such a situation for leniency, this seems like it fits the bill.
For what it's worth, if there are any lessons learned, I would say (1) here's another reason why paper-filing may be superior, and (2) don't trust H&R block--this was an absolute debacle.
I suppose you can add filing early to the list of best practices too. I would agree about not waiting to file until 11:59pm on April 15. However, I would have thought filing the day before (48 hours or so early--which I did myself) was a sufficient buffer, but I guess people will say you should file 5, 10, 30, days early.
At some point though, you can't reasonably guard against every conceivable possibility. To me, the possibility of paying double is an unreasonable contingency to plan for. In fact, people were hitting the "e-file" button with HR Block 50-100 times over the last 48 hours prior to the deadline. What if each of those failed attempts actually went through after-the-fact? Should filers be prepared to pay 100x their actual tax liability? Even if you did have 100x your liability lying around in an emergency fund, don't forget that those funds almost certainly wouldn't transfer over in time to help the OP in his situation (maybe they would have cleared in time, if he attempted a transfer on 4/15 and hoped the transfer completed before the IRS received the check in the mail). My point being, it wouldn't have even been enough for the OP to had those funds "available"; he would have had to have had them already transferred into his checking account in some multiple of his tax liability.
And again, I'm not sure there is any "move" for the OP to make at this point; the damage is likely already done.
I was not aware of the 2% bounced-check fee. That seems a tad harsh for innocent "mistakes" (which I'm not even sure this is). But glad to see there is a mechanism for seeking abatement, and if ever there was such a situation for leniency, this seems like it fits the bill.
For what it's worth, if there are any lessons learned, I would say (1) here's another reason why paper-filing may be superior, and (2) don't trust H&R block--this was an absolute debacle.
Statistics: Posted by grogu — Wed May 08, 2024 1:02 am