Warning: California penalizes you 25% for not filing even if they owe you!

This is a warning that California will charge you an additional 25% even if you never owed them a penny if you don't file an income tax return with them more than 8 months after April 15. For example, if you make 100K and your california income tax is 10K yet you already paid in payroll taxes 11K but you don't file for a year, then California will automatically charge you the original 10K plus 25% of the 10K which is

12.5K just because you're late. So you don't even get your refund. They keep it (they kept mine). And they send you a bill besides. All for taxes you never owed in the first place! The federal government does NOT penalize you for being late if they owe you. I know all this because after my husband died a few years ago, I moved from Texas which thankfully is a very low tax state to California which unfortunately is a very high tax state and it took me a while to get my tax feet on the ground again. I don't want this to happen to other hapless Californians.

Warning: California penalizes you 25% for not filing even if they owe you! Thanks in advance for any help. Vickie

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Reply to
Vickie Seley
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A delinquent penalty will be charged on unpaid taxes if a return is filed late. The penalty is 5 percent of the unpaid tax due for every month that the return is late, up to a maximum penalty of 25 percent of the unpaid tax. The minimum penalty is $100 or 100 percent of the unpaid tax, whichever is less. In your example, there would be no penalty because there is no unpaid tax due.

Reply to
Mike Wellman

This saga played out--may still be playing, I blocked it--on the unmoderated group. After about 50 more posts the fully fleshed out story will emerge, and we'll learn that OP ignored notices from both IRS and CA, which both pursued SFR remedies. The CA penalty was appropriate for the year in question.

-- Phil Marti Clarksburg, MD

Moderator: Thanks, Phil. I rarely read the other group so I was not aware of the situation. As right now, this thread is closed.

Reply to
Phil Marti

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