The tax deadline is May 17th this year, but it’s better not to wait!
The deadline for filing Federal, Pennsylvania, and Philadelphia tax returns and paying your 2020 income taxes has been extended to May 17th, 2021. After that, penalties and interest start to add up! Even if you don’t normally have to file a tax return or didn’t have any income last year (including if you get SSI), you should still file a 2020 federal tax return ASAP to claim all of your children and get on the books for the advance payment of the expanded 2021 child tax credit, as well as to claim any stimulus payments you missed.
The Campaign for Working Families provides free tax filing services to individuals and families with income of less than $65,000: https://cwfphilly.org/
And you don’t want to wait until May 17th or later to file, only to find that someone else has already claimed you or your children and that you need to mail your return in! Because of COVID-19, the IRS is still taking much longer than normal to process returns that are mailed in.
If you are worried that you’ll owe taxes that you can’t afford to pay, it is still generally better to file your return ASAP. You can get into a payment plan or might even be able to wait to pay later. The fed, the state, and the city all charge penalties for not filing tax returns on time. If you absolutely can’t file your returns by May 17th, then by that date you should at least request an extension to file your federal and state returns to avoid the that penalty.
