There’s an old saying: When the going gets tough, the tough get going. Well, with Bozos things work differently. “Oh my,” a Bozo thinks. “Tax Day is just a couple of days away. I’m completely unprepared. I know: I’ll go visit Aunt Bertha and Uncle Abner in Ottawa. I’ll catch the hockey, and forget about tax.”
Believe it or not, this strategy actually works (for a while). If you are outside of the United States on the day taxes are due (April 17th this year), you get an extra two months (until June 15th) to file your federal taxes. There are no penalties, just interest.
So suppose you haven’t a prayer of paying your federal taxes and you go to Ottawa to see the Rangers face the Senators on both Monday and Wednesday (and stay all three days). Yes, you have until June 15th to file your taxes.
Now, this strategy doesn’t work for every state, though. Some states do follow the two-month extension (New York and North Carolina, for example); others do not. I’ve had clients stuck in Europe do a volcanic eruption (remember that volcano in Iceland that erupted a couple of years ago), panic, and I told them to relax.
Of course, if you can’t travel abroad, going from the city to the suburbs won’t change the tax deadline. And I must emphasize that this is just a temporary fix. Yet this is the one example of a Bozo maneuver that can really work.
That’s it for our Bozo Tax Tips for the 2011 Tax Filing Season. I hope you’ve enjoyed them. We’ll be back with actual tax posts at the end of the week.
Happy Tax Day!
Tags: BozoTaxTips