Prepare the facts for a failure-to-file or failure-to-pay addition

Key facts

Human involvement

Yellow · Close supervision

How AI is used

Build a month-by-month table of the failure and of the tax the return or the notice shows, and list the facts the client gives about why the return or the payment was late. Leave the reasonable-cause conclusion blank.

What the lawyer must review

26 U.S.C. § 6651: if a required return is not filed on the date prescribed, taking account of any extension, the addition is 5 percent of the tax required to be shown if the failure is not more than one month, plus 5 percent for each further month or part of a month, not exceeding 25 percent, unless the failure is due to reasonable cause and not due to willful neglect. Failure to pay the tax shown on the return draws 0.5 percent for each month or part of a month, not exceeding 25 percent, unless the same exception is shown. If a return under chapter 1 is filed more than 60 days after the prescribed date, the failure-to-file addition is not less than the lesser of $435 or 100 percent of the tax required to be shown. You decide whether reasonable cause, and the absence of willful neglect, are shown, and you check every sentence before a request is sent. Later subsections change the rate in stated cases. Open them before you use another rate. This is not an abatement of interest.

Written for / version

United States versionUS