This tax season, April 15 falls on a Sunday and Monday, April 16 is Emancipation Day. Emancipation Day is a holiday in Washington D.C. to mark the anniversary of the signing of the Compensated Emancipation Act, which President Abraham Lincoln signed on April 16, 1862. It is annually held on April 16 and is a legal holiday in Washington D.C., and it has the effect of nationally extending the due date for filing your personal and trust income tax returns. The Compensated Emancipation Act freed about 3,000 slaves in Washington D.C. in 1862, but slavery did not officially end in the United States until after the Civil War in 1865, when the House passed the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

If you don’t file your return by the due date or you don’t get an extension and you owe tax, then you will be subject to the late filing penalty and the late payment penalty. Together, they add up to 5% per month, or fraction thereof, up to a maximum of 25% of your unpaid tax. Please give me a call if you would like to file for an extension of time to file your return. If you know that you will owe additional tax with your return, then you must pay your tax with the extension to avoid the above penalties. Remember, this is an extension of time to file, not an extension of time to pay; you will have six months to get the job done—until October 15, 2018. See you soon.

That is all today. I look forward to visiting with you next week. Let me know if you have a question—you can send an email to robert@robertstevensoncpa.com or call (713) 785-8939. You can also leave a comment on this post.