You could have just estimated your income taxes ahead of time and saved enough to pay it before the due date, but why risk jailtime when there is automatic tax withholding available to you?
It’s worse when you’re operating a business and you have to pay quarterly estimated taxes.
Eh, you generally don’t get jail time for late payment. Tax agencies are more interested in getting the money than putting people in jail and people don’t make money to pay off what they owe when they’re in jail.
You get charged interest for late payment, but it’s at a very reasonable rate. The government can borrow money at better interest rate than is available to most people after all.
The big no-no is lying on your tax forms. That’s something they might put you in jail for. But even then they’re likely to prefer fines over jail time. Because they want that money.
People that go to jail are either Al Capone who the government just wants to get for anything, or people that continuously try to defraud the government on their tax forms. Sometimes it’s people who straight up refuse to pay their taxes, but even then they’ll try to garnish their wages to get the money. But if that mechanism isn’t available, then that can result in jail time.
You could have just estimated your income taxes ahead of time and saved enough to pay it before the due date, but why risk jailtime when there is automatic tax withholding available to you?
It’s worse when you’re operating a business and you have to pay quarterly estimated taxes.
Eh, you generally don’t get jail time for late payment. Tax agencies are more interested in getting the money than putting people in jail and people don’t make money to pay off what they owe when they’re in jail.
You get charged interest for late payment, but it’s at a very reasonable rate. The government can borrow money at better interest rate than is available to most people after all.
The big no-no is lying on your tax forms. That’s something they might put you in jail for. But even then they’re likely to prefer fines over jail time. Because they want that money.
People that go to jail are either Al Capone who the government just wants to get for anything, or people that continuously try to defraud the government on their tax forms. Sometimes it’s people who straight up refuse to pay their taxes, but even then they’ll try to garnish their wages to get the money. But if that mechanism isn’t available, then that can result in jail time.