1 week left until taxes are due

ROCHESTER, N.Y. (WHEC) — If you haven’t filed your taxes yet, you still have a week to do them. Tax experts say, filing this year could get complicated and gave some last-minute tips.

Normally, the deadline is April 15, but it was pushed to April 18 this year because of Good Friday.

Don’t panic. If you need more time you can file for a tax extension that would give you an extra six months to figure it out. Tax experts like Alfred Burgos, president of Burgos Income Tax, told News10NBC’s Stephanie Duprey that filing this year could be tricky.

"But, you have to file, the proper form to file an extension. The 4868 for the federal, and in New York we have state taxes here, and that’s a NY IT-370 form,” Burgos said.

Burgos has been filing taxes for more than 30 years.

“This year is a little complicated,” Burgos said.

Burgos says, there are new checkboxes for filers to figure out that are related to stimulus payments and child tax credits. You don’t owe money on stimulus but, you need to make sure you entered what you got, which needs to match IRS records.

"You have to reconcile the child tax care credit, you have to reconcile the stimulus payment that was sent in March of 2021, a lot of clients are coming in and we ask them if they got it and they say they don’t remember,” Burgos added.

Sometimes, we forget things. Burgos says the IRS sent out letters in January telling folks whether they got a refund or not.

"The IRS has that information the whole purpose of putting it in is some taxpayers didn’t receive it because they moved or something happened,” Burgos said.

A lot of people lost their jobs during the pandemic, Burgos said navigating unemployment on tax sheets has been complicated too.

"Tax-exempt in 2020, so we have clients coming in and they didn’t have any withholdings on their unemployment, so they’re wondering wow, the prior year I had a nice refund now I don’t, you made a mistake, I say, ‘Wait, wait, you just didn’t have withholdings,’” Burgos said.

Social Security is another big one.

"We have a lot of recent retirees, and Social Security is taxable if you have pension income and you have, some clients get bored they get a little job, up to 85% of your Social Security is taxable,” Burgos said.

Just remember, you’ll have until October if you file for the extension. The IRS said filing electronically is the best, and fastest way to get a refund. The agency is working through backlogs of paper returns that built up during its closure earlier this year in response to COVID.