Don't Mess With Taxes

Updated, Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2025

Millions of taxpayers already are filling out their 2024 tax returns. Now they just need to know when the Internal Revenue Service will start processing them.

On Friday, Jan. 10, Free File opens. The no-cost online tax preparation and e-filing option can be used by taxpayers whose adjusted gross income (AGI) is $84,000 or less.

Business taxpayers will be able to electronically file their returns on Jan. 15.

As for individual filers who make more than the Free File AGI threshold, they can start using Free File's Fillable Forms on Jan. 27. That date follows the IRS' usual filing season schedule, which means the 2025 season should officially open on this last Monday of January, too, with the tax agency accepting all other types of 2024 tax return filings.

Meanwhile, there are a lots of other tax dates in 2025 that are set, including the fast approaching Jan. 15 estimated tax deadline and Tax Day on April 15.

Most of the key tax dates below are for individual taxpayers. But you're not forgotten, business filers. You can find more on business tax deadlines in the IRS' online tax calendar. That's the link in the preceding sentence, but at last check, the IRS is still updating this information. So, until the dates go live, you’ll need to go sorta old school and check the online version of IRS Publication 509 (2025), Tax Calendars.

Finally, even if you're an early individual filer, take at least a cursory glance at all the tax dates. There is at least one federal tax deadline in every month of the year. Obviously, they don't apply to every taxpayer, but it never hurts to know them. Just in case. Especially when it comes to taxes.

OK, enough with the calendar minutiae. Since tax time is ticking away, here goes with the federal due dates for the next 12 months.
    

JANUARY

Thursday, January 9 — Today is a National Day of Mourning for James Earl Carter, Jr., the 39th President of the United States. In acknowledgment of this somber honor, the IRS has granted taxpayers an extra day, until Friday, Jan. 10, 2025, to file any return or pay any tax originally due today.

Friday, January 10 — Free File opens. The eight participating companies this year will be available for taxpayers with $84,000 or less AGI to use.

Friday, January 10 — Also today, if your job includes tips from customers and you got at least $20 in gratuities in December, you need to report the amount to your employer today using Form 4070.

Wednesday, January 15 — This is the due date for the final individual estimated tax payment for the 2024 tax year.

Wednesday, January 15 — Today also is the day that the IRS begins accepting electronically filed business returns.

Monday, January 27 — The last Monday of the month was the day last year that the IRS began accepting and processing tax year returns, both those filed by paper and electronically. Today is expected to be the date that the IRS will start processing 2024 tax year returns. The date appears pretty firm, as the IRS already has announced that Jan. 27 is the day that taxpayers who make more than $84,000 can start using Free File's Fillable Forms.

Friday, January 31 — All businesses must give annual information statements to recipients of certain payments made during 2024. These statements typically one of the various versions of Form 1099. While many are still mailed, 1099 forms can be issued electronically with the consent of the recipient.

Friday, January 31 — If you didn't pay your final 2024 estimated tax amount a couple of weeks ago, you need to file your full 2024 tax return today to avoid any penalty for not paying it on time. Farmers and fishermen who didn’t meet the Jan. 15 due date have until March 3, noted later in this post.
    

FEBRUARY

Monday, February 10 — If your job includes tips from customers and you got at least $20 in gratuities in January, you need to report the amount to your employer today using Form 4070.

Tuesday, February 18 — If you claimed exemption from income tax withholding last year on the Form W-4 you gave your employer, you must file a new Form W-4 by today to continue your exemption for another year.
     

MARCH

Monday, March 3 — Farmers and fishermen get until today to file their 2024 tax return (Form 1040) to avoid a potential penalty for not having paid their final 2024 estimated tax by Jan. 15.

Monday, March 10 — If your job includes tips from customers and you got at least $20 in gratuities in February, you need to report the amount to your employer today using Form 4070.

Monday, March 17 — This is a key day for business filers. Yes, I know I said earlier that I'm focusing on individual deadlines, but I'm making an exception, like I did for the missed January estimate tax payment, since this deadline affects so many taxpayers. Today is the deadline for partnerships and S corporations to file their returns. Or file for an extension.
    

APRIL

Tuesday, April 1 — Yes, it's April Fools' Day, but the IRS isn't fooling around if you turned 73 in 2024. If you celebrated that birthday last year and didn't take your first required minimum distribution (RMD) by Dec. 31, 2024, you must do so by today, April 1. Don't miss the deadline or you could face a 25 percent penalty on the overlooked/ignored withdrawal. Then you've got to take an RMD every year by Dec. 31, including this one. That means you'll be getting two distributions from your deferred-tax retirement accounts in 2025. That also means you need to check into whether multiple RMDs in one year will kick you into a higher tax bracket and/or necessitate additional estimated tax payments.

Thursday, April 10 — If your job includes tips from customers and you got at least $20 in gratuities in March, you need to report the amount to your employer today using Form 4070.

Tuesday, April 15 — This is it. Tax Day 2025 for most individual taxpayers. You need to file your Form 1040 and pay any due tax today. Or you need to file for an extension by submitting Form 4868, Application for Automatic Extension of Time to File U.S. Individual Income Tax Return, to get until mid-October to file your tax forms. Note, however, that the extension is just to file your return; you still must pay any 2024 tax you expect to owe by today. That payment must with your extension filing, either as a mailed paper Form 4868 postmarked today or an electronic filing. Miss filing either and you’ll end up owing late-filing and late-payment penalties.

Since I’m posting this in early January, I must note that some taxpayers likely will get beyond April 15 to file and pay their 2024 taxes. Unfortunately for them, they will be in Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) major disaster areas. 

Following those designations, the IRS grants the affected taxpayers, individual and business, tax relief that typically includes extended filing and payment deadlines. Last year, for example, some deadlines for 2023 returns got pushed into 2025 since the catastrophes hit later in the year.

You can check the IRS’ state-by-state disaster page, as well as the ol’ blog’s Storm Warnings’ recovery page for details and updates on these situations. 
      

Tuesday, April 15 also is the deadline (again, for most of us) to —

• Pay our estimated tax amount for the first quarter of 2025 (use Form 1040-ES if mailing in the payment, or pay it electronically)
• Contribute to IRA, traditional or Roth, for the 2024 tax year;
• Withdraw excess 2024 IRA contributions in to avoid penalty (if you didn't file for an extension to finish your Form 1040);
• Contribute, if you're self-employed, to a Solo 401(k) Plan or Simplified Employee Pension (SEP) plan for the 2024 tax year (if you didn't file for an extension to finish your Form 1040);
• Contribute to a health savings account (HSA) for 2024 tax year; and
• File Schedule H (1040) and pay employment taxes for household employees (file Schedule H separately if you are not filing Form 1040).
       

MAY

Monday, May 12 — If your job includes tips from customers and you got at least $20 in gratuities in April, you need to report the amount to your employer today using Form 4070.
    

JUNE

Tuesday, June 10 — If your job includes tips from customers and you got at least $20 in gratuities in May, you need to report the amount to your employer today using Form 4070. This usual June 10 deadline moves to Monday this month because it was on Saturday.

Monday, June 16 — Pay the estimated tax amount for the second quarter of 2025. You can mail the amount using Form 1040-ES and it will be counted as paid on time as long as the envelope bears today’s U.S. Postal Service postmark. Or you can pay electronically.

Monday, June 16 — This mid-June day also is the deadline for U.S. taxpayers who are living and working abroad, as well as military personnel stationed outside the United States, to file their 2024 tax returns. Note, however, this due date is for the forms only. These taxpayers should have paid any due tax by April 15. Interest has been accruing since then on the unpaid amounts. Any payments made after June 16 incur both interest and failure-to-pay penalties. Also, as with domestic filers, overseas workers or active-duty armed forces members can file Form 4868 today to request four extra months, until October, to finish their filing.
      

JULY

Thursday, July 10 — If your job includes tips from customers and you got at least $20 in gratuities in June, you need to report the amount to your employer today using Form 4070.
    

AUGUST

Monday, August 11 — If your job includes tips from customers and you got at least $20 in gratuities in July, you need to report the amount to your employer today using Form 4070.
   

SEPTEMBER

Wednesday, September 10 — If your job includes tips from customers and you got at least $20 in gratuities in August, you need to report the amount to your employer today using Form 4070. 4070. This deadline is a day later than usual, since Sept. 10 is on Sunday.

Monday, September 15 — Pay the estimated tax amount for the third quarter of 2025. You can mail the amount using Form 1040-ES and it will be counted as paid on time as long as the envelope bears today’s U.S. Postal Service postmark. Or you can pay electronically.
            

OCTOBER

Friday, October 10 — If your job includes tips from customers and you got at least $20 in gratuities in September, you need to report the amount to your employer today using Form 4070.

Wednesday, October 15 — This is the absolutely final Tax Day 2025 for taxpayers who got an extension to file their 2024 tax year Form 1040. If that's you, you need to get the paperwork to the IRS electronically today, or on its way as an old-school paper filing in an U.S. Postal Service delivered envelope with today’s postmark.

Wednesday, October 15 also is the deadline for those who got extensions to —

• Withdraw excess IRA 2024 contributions and file an amended return to avoid penalty; and
• Contribute, as a self-employed taxpayer who got an extension to file, to a Solo 401(k) or Simplified Employee Pension (SEP) for the 2023 tax year.
                  

NOVEMBER

Monday, November 10 — If your job includes tips from customers and you got at least $20 in gratuities in October, you need to report the amount to your employer today using Form 4070.
   

DECEMBER

Wednesday, December 10 — If your job includes tips from customers and you got at least $20 in gratuities in November, you need to report the amount to your employer today using Form 4070.

Wednesday, December 31 — We finally made it! Tax year 2025 is over, after we make sure we meet some final tax deadlines.

As noted in the April section, most retirees who must take RMDs from traditional IRAs and 401(k)s must do so by today. It's also the last day to make contributions to company retirement plans, such as 401(k)s, for the 2024 tax year.

It's also the final chance in 2025 to donate to your favorite nonprofit and have the gift count as an itemized charitable tax deduction on the return you file next year.

Some other Dec. 31 actions, such as getting married, finalizing a divorce, or adding a new family member, also will affect your 2025 taxes for the entire year.

Holidays can affect tax deadlines: The very first listing in the preceding rundown of the important tax dates of 2025 was the Jan. 9 National Day of Mourning for President Jimmy Carter. While not an official federal holiday, the IRS still made adjustments to its tax deadlines as a courtesy to the memory of the former Commander in Chief. 

You also probably noticed that some other 2025 deadlines, such as estimated tax due dates or when to report tip income, didn't fall on their usual fixed days.

That's because those days this year are on Saturday or Sunday, and when tax deadlines fall on weekends, they're automatically moved to the next business day. Unless that next business day is a legal holiday. Then Uncle Sam's deadlines are moved again to the next business day.

Below are, or were since we’ve already celebrated Jan. 1, the federal holidays recognized by Uncle Sam in 2025:

• January 1, New Year's Day
• January 20, Birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr.
• January 20, Presidential Inauguration
• February 17, Washington's Birthday (sometimes called, erroneously, Presidents, with or without an apostrophe, Day)
• April 16, District of Columbia Emancipation Day
• May 26, Memorial Day
• June 19, Juneteenth National Independence Day
• July 4, Independence Day
• September 1, Labor Day
• October 13, Columbus Day (Yes, acknowledgement of the Italian explorer Christopher Columbus is still the day’s official title. However, many states have changed or added recognition of America's natives on this day. During the Biden Administration, the White House issued dual proclamations for this October holiday.)
• November 11, Veterans Day (Veterans Day is not subject to the Monday holiday law, since the date and time have special significance denoting the end of World War I.)
• November 27, Thanksgiving Day
• December 25, Christmas Day

Some of y’all might be asking about April 16, Emancipation Day. Although the day this commemorating the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia on April 16, 1862, is a holiday only in Washington, D.C., it's on the list because the term legal holiday encompasses any legal holiday in the national capital.

Emancipation Day is not an issue in 2025, falling the day after the regular Tax Day federal return filing deadline, but some years it does come into play. That happened most recently in 2023, when April 15 was on a weekend and the move to the next business day coincided with Emancipation Day, pushing the federal filing deadline even later.

State tax timing, too: While the District of Columbia is not a state (yet), one other state holiday also sometimes affects federal taxes. That's Patriots’ Day.

This state holiday in both Maine and Massachusetts commemorates the Revolutionary War battles of Lexington and Concord. When Patriots’ Day and Tax Day are the same, taxpayers in those two New England states get an extra day to fulfill their IRS filing obligation.

That won’t be a problem in 2025, since the official third Monday in April date for Patriots’ Day is April 21. It’s also when the Boston Marathon is run, and the Red Sox play earlier than usual day baseball in Fenway Park.

And speaking of states, most of them that collect individual income taxes follow the federal filing calendar, which I promise I’m about to get to! You can check your state’s filing due date in the ol' blog's state tax directory. It has links to the various revenue departments where you can get the latest state tax information, forms, online filing options, and, of course, deadlines.

OK, that's it for 2025 tax deadlines. For now. Mark your electronic or paper (yes, some of us still use them, too) calendars and set reminders for the upcoming 2025 tax deadlines you must meet.

Then go and enjoy the rest of the non-tax year.

You also might find these items of interest:

• January 2025 Tax Tips
• Tax Forms 2024 you might need to file this tax season
• 6 January tax moves to make this Happy New 2025 Tax Year

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