How to File a Tax Extension

It’s still more than a month away from the 2010 tax deadline, April 15, 2010. If you haven’t finished your tax return yet, there’s still plenty of time to get it done before the deadline, so it may be a little early to talk about tax extension. However, if for any reason that you believe you won’t be able to file your 2009 tax on time, you should prepare to request an extension of time to file your tax return which will automatically give you 6 more months to prepare your federal tax. But you must file the extension on or before the tax day.

There are a few options for you to file an federal extension, either free or with a small fee. First, you can use IRS’s free e-filing service to file an extension for free. Currently, the IRS has two options for taxpayers seeking an extension: On IRS Free File page, you can use either

• Traditional free file, or
• Free file fillable form

to request an extension electronically. Even though there’s an income limit (less than $56,000) to use IRS Free File to file federal income tax, the Free File is free for any taxpayer to file a federal extension request from a home computer by April 15, regardless of income. As I mentioned earlier, using free e-filing to get an extension is fast, secure and convenient. Of course, you can always fill out the paper Form 4868 and mail it to IRS if you choose to do so

BTW, to qualify for an extension, you must

1. Properly estimate your 2009 tax liability using the information available to you,
2. Enter your total tax liability on line 4 of Form 4868, and
3. File Form 4868 by the regular due date of your return.

Then, there are also paid services. For example, FileLater lets you file a federal extension for $9.95 (regular price $17.95), which can be done on April 15th.