2009 filing deadline approaching fast

The 2009 tax filing deadline for most taxpayers (March 31 2010) is approaching fast. We do still have some clients who haven’t sent in their papers.
They run the risk of incurring late filing penalties, but more than that they run the risk of incurring use of money interest and late tax payment penalties if their tax liabilities haven’t been carefully managed over the year. As well, they loose their extension of time (EOT) facility and cannot get it back until they have filed returns in the standard time for a subsequent year. For most clients this would be by July 7 following the end of the March 31 tax year.
We also can be exposed to risk from the IRD if our tax agent EOTs are not met. Hence the IRD tool, the L-Letter, to help us manage this problem. Once we advise the IRD that particular taxpayers have not supplied their papers to allow us to complete the returns in time, the IRD computer generates letters to the relevant taxpayers warning them of the consequences of late filing.
Importantly for us, this removes the errant client names from our full-year target and so allows us to meet it. We have been fortunate to have met all of our targets for the last five years, a tribute to our ever- watchful Karen.