By CORA LEWIS

NEW YORK (AP) — If you’ve waited till the last minute to file your taxes, don’t panic. You still have time to get it done.

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And if you’re worried that you still might not be able to finish in time, you can file for an extension, which will give you until Oct. 16 to file your return.

What do I need to file my tax return?

Generally, every tax-filer needs the following at hand

— your Social Security number

— W-2 forms, if you’re employed

— 1099-G forms, if you’re unemployed

— 1099 forms, if you’re self-employed

— Savings and investment records

— A sense of any eligible deductions, such as education expenses, medical bills, charitable donations, etc.

— A sense of relevant tax credits, such as the child tax credit, retirement savings contributions credit, etc.

To find a more detailed document list, visit the IRS website.

Tom O’Saben, director of tax content and government relations at the National Association of Tax Professionals, recommends gathering all your documents in one place before you start your tax return, as well as having your documents from last year if your financial situation has drastically changed.

Theresa Grover, site coordinator for the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program at Northeast Wisconsin Technical College, also recommends taxpayers create an identity protection PIN number with the IRS to guard against identity theft. Once you create a number, the IRS will require it to file your tax return.

How do I file for an extension?

If you run out of time to file your tax return, you can file for an extension to take more time by using your preferred tax software, with the IRS Free File tool, or via mail.

However, it’s important to remember the extension is only to file your tax return, not to pay owed taxes. If you owe taxes, you should pay an estimated amount before the deadline to avoid paying penalties and interest. If you expect to receive a refund, you’ll still receive your money when you file your taxes.

The deadline to file for an extension is Tuesday, April 15, which will give you until Oct. 16 to file.

How can I avoid mistakes filing my taxes?

Many people fear getting in trouble with the IRS if they make a mistake. To avoid common errors:

— Double check your name on your Social Security card.

When working with clients, O’Saben always asks them to bring their Social Security card to double-check their number and their legal name, which can change after marriage, for example.

“You may have changed your name but you didn’t change it with Social Security,” O’Saben said. “If the Social Security number doesn’t match the first four letters of the last name, the return will be rejected and that will delay processing.”

— Search for tax statements if you’ve opted out of paper mail.

Many people like to opt out of snail mail, but paper mail can also include your tax documents.

“If you didn’t get anything in the mail doesn’t mean that there isn’t an information document out there that you need to be aware of and report accordingly,” said O’Saben.

— Report all of your income.

If you had more than one job in 2022, you need the W-2 forms for each — not just the one from the job you ended the year with, said Christina Wease, interim director of the tax clinic at Michigan State University.

What resources are available?

For those who make $73,000 or less per year, the IRS offers free guided tax preparation that does the math for you. If you have questions while working on your tax forms, the IRS also offers an interactive tax assistant tool.

Beyond TurboTax and H&R Block, taxpayers can also hire licensed professionals, such as certified public accountants. The IRS offers a directory of tax preparers across the United States.

The IRS also funds two types of programs that offer free tax help: Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) and the Tax Counseling for the Elderly program (TCE). People who earn $60,000 or less a year, those who have a disability, and those who speak limited English all qualify for the VITA program. Those who are 60 or older qualify for the TCE program. The IRS has a site for locating organizations hosting VITA and TCE clinics.

If you have a tax problem, there are clinics around the country that can help you resolve these issues. Generally, these tax clinics also offer services in other languages such as Spanish, Chinese and Vietnamese.

The Associated Press receives support from Charles Schwab Foundation for educational and explanatory reporting to improve financial literacy. The independent foundation is separate from Charles Schwab and Co. Inc. The AP is solely responsible for its journalism.

By Allison Martin, Bankrate.com

The tax-filing deadline is typically April 15 each year. If you can’t make that deadline, it’s easy to get a six-month extension for filing your return, though your tax payment is still due by April 15.

But what happens if you don’t file taxes by either of those deadlines? The consequences are very different depending on whether you’re expecting a tax refund or you owe the IRS money.

What happens if you don’t file and you don’t owe taxes?

If you don’t owe any taxes or if you’re owed a refund, there’s no penalty for not filing your tax return. But you won’t receive your refund until you do file.

There won’t be a penalty for filing late — just get your paperwork to the IRS so they can process your taxes and issue the refund. You have up to three years after the due date of your return to claim your tax refund.

Most Americans get a tax refund after filing their tax return. This happens because you’ve paid more in taxes over the year than you owe. Often, this is because most employers withhold money from each paycheck, which goes toward your taxes, but that withholding typically doesn’t account for tax credits and other tax benefits you may be eligible for, so the government has to pay you back in the form of a tax refund.

Every year, the IRS announces that hundreds of thousands of taxpayers are about to miss the deadline to claim their tax refund; the most recent announcement, in March 2024, said that $1 billion in unpaid refunds from 2021 was about to be relinquished by taxpayers.

If you didn’t file in the last few years, consider getting a tax return filed soon so you can get any money that’s owed to you.

What happens if you don’t file, and you owe taxes?

If you owe a tax bill and you haven’t filed your tax return, then the first step is to file your tax return, or a tax extension, as soon as you can, even if you can’t pay your bill just yet. You want to get your tax return filed because the failure to file penalty is much steeper than the failure to pay penalty.

Failure to file penalty

If you don’t file a tax return and you owe money to the IRS, you’ll face a failure to file penalty of 5% each month on any unpaid taxes, capped at 25%, plus interest. Here’s how it breaks down:

—First month: 5% of tax liability

—Second month: 5% of tax liability (after 60 days of being late, the minimum failure to file penalty is $485 or 100% of your tax liability, whichever is less)

—Third month: 5% of tax liability

—Fourth month: 5% of tax liability

—Fifth month: 5% of tax liability

There are some situations, including natural disasters and military service, for which the IRS will forgive failure to file penalties. But unless you fall under one of those exceptions, expect to pay the penalty.

State laws vary considerably, so check what your local laws are for failure to file. (Check your state’s income and sales tax rates.)

What happens if you pay taxes late?

Failing to pay your tax bill by the April 15 deadline also comes with a penalty and interest, though that penalty is lower than the failure to file penalty.

Failure to pay penalty

Each month that you fail to pay your taxes in full will result in the IRS assessing a penalty of 0.5% of your total tax liability. This will continue each month, maxing out at 25% of your total tax bill. (A six-month extension to file your tax return doesn’t apply to your payment. You don’t get more time to pay; you only get more time to file your return.)

There is also interest owed on any outstanding taxes. The interest will be determined by the current federal short-term interest rate plus an additional 3%. The short-term rate changes every three months, so your interest rate may go up or down depending on how long it takes to pay your tax bill in full.

For the first and second quarter of 2025, the interest rate for underpayment is 7% (see this IRS page for interest rate updates).

State laws vary considerably, so check what your local laws are for failure to pay.

What happens if you haven’t paid your taxes in years?

If you’ve avoided paying your taxes for a while, the IRS may seek to recover those funds from you in a number of ways, including garnishing wages from your paycheck, placing a lien on your home or other high-value property or coming directly for your bank account. The IRS will also withhold future tax refunds until your tax bill has been paid down.

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There are other potential penalties, as well. In some cases, if you owe more than $62,000 in taxes in 2024 (the dollar amount adjusts for inflation each year), the government may refuse to issue you a passport. The IRS may also choose to refer your outstanding tax payment to a private collections agency, which will likely be more aggressive in attempting to recover the funds. The IRS can seek to have people jailed for unpaid tax debt, but that’s highly unusual.

Generally, the IRS has 10 years to collect on unpaid taxes. However, there are exceptions to this, and situations where that 10-year period can get extended.

Steps to take if you’re behind on taxes

Dealing with outstanding tax debt can be stressful, and for some people it may feel easier to ignore the situation. But addressing the issue can save you anxiety and money in the long run. Here are two steps to get started:

—Determine how much you owe: Before you can start paying, you need to know just how much you owe the IRS. You can determine this by requesting your transcripts from the IRS. Even if you haven’t filed taxes in years, you will be able to see the information the IRS has on hand and see how much the agency says you owe.

—File your taxes: If you haven’t filed your taxes yet, do that. Contact your employers and ask for a copy of your tax documents. They should be able to provide these records. Upon filing, you may find that you are owed a refund. If you have a history of good tax compliance, it’s possible to get some of the fees abated under administrative penalty relief, but specific rules apply.

What to do if you can’t afford to pay taxes

If you can’t afford to pay your taxes, your best bet is to contact the IRS to work out a payment plan. The agency is more interested in collecting what it can than penalizing you, and is likely to work with you to set up a payment plan or an installment agreement.

If you can’t pay your tax debt in full, research the IRS’s resources for dealing with tax debt. You may qualify for an offer in compromise, which lets you pay less than you owe, or you might qualify to delay collection of your debt.

©2025 Bankrate.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

By MIKE STOBBE, AP Medical Writer

ATLANTA (AP) — A key vaccine advisory committee met for the first time under new U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a leading voice in the U.S. anti-vaccine movement.

Tuesday’s meeting was, to some extent, business as usual, though with a major question looming: Who would evaluate the committee’s recommendations?

The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices’ two-day meeting took up vaccine policy questions that had been put on hold when the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services abruptly postponed the panel’s February meeting.

“It will be striking” if the meeting is routine, given “signals and alarms” that suggest changes and perhaps reductions in federal vaccination efforts, said Jason Schwartz, a Yale University health policy researcher who studies government health agencies.

But Tuesday’s meeting started fairly routine, with most members joining through a webcast. They discussed an mpox vaccine and how the winter flu and COVID-19 seasons were going.

CDC official asks about COVID-19 vaccines

The conversation took a turn when a CDC official summarized a committee workgroup discussion about the waning COVID-19 pandemic, and asked whether the panel might consider changing vaccination recommendations. For example, instead of recommending seasonal shots for all Americans 6 months and older, should the recommendations be more focused — at least for certain age groups — on people with chronic illnesses or otherwise at higher risk?

“I guess I am surprised we’re considering a risk-based recommendation,” said committee member Dr. Denise Jamieson, dean of the University of Iowa’s medical school.

She worried it will be harder to implement, and may cause more headaches for patients who want to get shots and have them covered by insurance.

Dr. Jamie Loehr, a family medicine doctor in Itasca, New York, said he is in favor of a risk-based recommendation but also worried about feasibility and the message it would send.

“COVID is still a fairly dangerous disease and very very common,” he said. “We are not talking about 10 cases of mpox. We are talking about thousands of hospitalizations and deaths.”

A vote on the idea could come at the next committee meeting, scheduled for June.

Who will take up the committee’s recommendations?

The 15-member panel of outside scientific experts, created in 1964, makes recommendations to the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. CDC directors almost always approve those recommendations on how Food and Drug Administration-cleared vaccines should be used. The CDC’s final recommendations are not binding, but for decades they have been widely heeded by doctors and determine the scope and funding of vaccination programs.

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The committee was slated to vote Wednesday afternoon on whether to make new recommendations regarding three kinds of vaccines, including one for meningitis and another to prevent a mosquito-borne illness called chikungunya.

It’s not clear who would decide whether to accept those recommendations.

The Trump administration named Susan Monarez as acting CDC director in January, and last month picked her to lead the agency. But while she’s awaiting Senate confirmation, Monarez has essentially recused herself from regular director duties because of federal law around vacancies, said two CDC officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss agency matters and feared being fired.

That means any committee recommendations made Wednesday seems likely to fall to Kennedy. When an AP reporter asked an HHS spokesperson, he said he was looking into the question but did not immediately have an answer.

During his Senate confirmation hearings, Kennedy told lawmakers he is not “antivaccine.” But since taking office, he has promised to “investigate” children’s shots and to take a new look at the possibility of links between childhood vaccinations and autism — a theory that has been debunked by a number of studies, including at least a dozen that involved CDC researchers.

The panel’s chair, Dr. Helen Keipp Talbot of Vanderbilt University, said she didn’t know who would decide whether to sign off on any recommendations.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

By Mia Taylor, TravelPulse

Most travelers can probably agree that going through airport security screening is an experience that falls somewhere on the fun meter between going to the dentist and paying taxes.

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To avoid this less-than-pleasant experience, some 20 million travelers have joined the TSA PreCheck program, according to the latest data from the Transportation Safety Administration.

The program, launched in 2013, promises “shorter wait times of under 10 minutes, greater checkpoint efficiency and improved security.”

However, newly released research from Upgraded Points, a travel and credit card points resource, reveals that despite the promised “under 10 minutes” wait time with TSA PreCheck, many program members experience substantially longer processing timelines.

Based on a survey of 1,517 Americans conducted this year, the research found that TSA PreCheck members are not necessarily speeding through security as the program promises.

More specifically, surveyed PreCheck members said that the average security screening processing time they experience is closer to 36 minutes. And that’s only 7 minutes faster than travelers who do not have PreCheck and reported an average processing time of 43 minutes.

Moreover, the research indicates that saving time is not necessarily the top attraction of TSA PreCheck membership in the eyes of harried travelers.

Instead, it may be the reduced stress associated with passing through security at the airport as a TSA PreCheck member.

The research shows that people with PreCheck say their airport stress levels are cut in half by their membership. These same travelers rate their stress when going through traditional security lines at a 7.4 on a stress scale of 1 to 10. However, the stress levels of surveyed travelers drops to just 3.5 out of 10 when in a TSA PreCheck screening line.

Additionally, when asked which TSA PreCheck member benefits are most important, 38.7% of travelers said the reduction in stress associated with airport screenings was the number one benefit.

Having access to shorter airport screening lines, meanwhile, came in second, with 34.4% of surveyed travelers saying it was the most crucial benefit of TSA PreCheck membership.

“Even if PreCheck isn’t saving a ton of time, travelers still like the peace of mind that comes with it,” Kyle Beierlein, the researcher for Upgraded Points who spearheaded the study, told TravelPulse. “I think it makes people feel like they’re doing everything they can to make getting through security easier.”

Underscoring that point, 94% of PreCheck holders who participated in the Upgraded Points survey said their membership improves the overall airport experience, and 92% percent said the $78 cost of membership is well worth the service.

“Plus, there are real perks like not having to take stuff out of your bag, being able to bring your young children through with you, and not stripping down to bare feet and short sleeves. That definitely helps cut down on stress,” Beierlein continued.

Indeed, about 11.5% of travelers said the ability to keep their shoes on during the airport screening process was the most important value of TSA PreCheck membership, followed by 11.1% who said not having to remove laptops or liquids from carry-on luggage is the top benefit.

Ironically, going through airport security screening without TSA PreCheck is far more stressful for those with the membership. When asked to rate how stressful it is going through airport security without TSA PreCheck (again on a scale of 1 to 10), TSA PreCheck members rated the process a 7.3. However, travelers who are not members of TSA PreCheck said the process of going through security only rates as 5.5 out of 10 on the stress scale.

Time spent at airports: TSA PreCheck vs. nonmembership

Circling back to how TSA PreCheck membership impacts a traveler’s overall time spent at the airport, the research provides a few more data points.

For instance, the researchers found that TSA PreCheck travelers typically arrive at the airport about one hour and 41 minutes before a flight, while those who do not have PreCheck membership generally arrive at the airport one hour and 47 minutes before their scheduled departure.

In other words, having TSA PreCheck membership only shaves about 6 minutes off the amount of time travelers feel they need at the airport before a flight.

And, of course, there’s the initial data point about TSA PreCheck membership only reducing airport screening time by about 7 minutes on average.

There’s likely a variety of factors at play regarding the variance between what TSA promises for PreCheck members (less than 10 minutes to pass through screening) and what many travelers are actually experiencing, Beierlein says.

“First, TSA PreCheck is available at over 200 airports, so smaller, less busy airports are likely bringing the average down,” Beierlein told TravelPulse.

“But most travelers are going through larger hubs, where wait times would typically be longer,” he added.

What’s more, the number of people who have TSA PreCheck membership is increasing, and as a result, the program’s expedited screening lines are becoming less exclusive, added Beierlein.

There may be another variable at play as well, admitted Beierlein: Both TSA and the travelers who were surveyed for the Upgraded Points research are merely estimating.

“TSA hasn’t said exactly how they calculate their times, and our travelers are going off memory, so there’s room for some fluctuations on both sides,” he explained. “That said, people are pretty clear: they don’t typically get through in under 10 minutes. It usually at least feels about triple that.”

It’s also important to remember that the figure in the survey is merely an average. Some travelers said PreCheck saves them a lot of time, while others said it still takes over an hour to get through screening.

“Overall, the reality is probably somewhere in the middle: at smaller airports, it might still be under 10 minutes, but at bigger ones, especially during busy times, it’s often 30 minutes or more,” said Beierlein.

©2025 Northstar Travel Media, LLC. Visit at travelpulse.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.