Forgot to renew Fictitious Name application within the county. What is the penalty for late filing?
I checked this myself and there is no monetary penalty for late filing. However, since I am late I have to do all publication over again which costs me extra $50.
"When you say ""set aside,"" you mean you saved to pay the tax due in April? That's underpaying. It's a rare exception the IRS makes for this penalty, hopefully it wasn't too large, and you now know how much to withhold through payroll deductions.  Problem is, this wasn't unusual, it was an oversight. You have no legitimate grounds to dispute. Sorry." As your question is written now, it looks like you have a typo.  Your stated APR is 5.542% = 0.05542, not 0.005542 as you've written.  I ran the numbers that you gave (accounting for the typo) through the formula at Wikipedia and got $849.2528 / month, which will round to $849.25 for most payments.  That doesn't match the number that you computed or the number on your TIL. (Maybe you also miskeyed the result of your calculation?) I agree that it's unlikely that this is just a calculation error by the mortgage company, although I wouldn't completely rule it out.  Are you paying anything else like a property tax escrow?  I didn't pull a blank TIL form to see what might go into the monthly payment line that you showed, but in many cases you do pay more than just principle and interest each month. (Not sure if that gets reflected at that point on the form though.) Search the website. There is generally a way to reverse the charge. I have seen these options exist on both Flexible spending accounts and Health Savings accounts. If the expense was for last year, and you had other expenses that you did not submit because you reached the limit, you will probably be OK. Send them both information on the wrong submission on the new submission. If you  left money on the table last year, they will want a check from you.   If the expense was for this year, you will not have a problem reversing the charge, because much of the year is left.  Of course due to the new rules regarding roll-over of lat years money into this year it could be more complex. You want to resolve it as soon a possible to minimize the complexity as deadlines for submission approach. If you don't report the mistake the extra income from the incorrect submission is considered taxable. "Step one: Contact the collection agency. Tell them that they have the wrong person, and the same name is just a coincidence. I would NOT give them my correct social security number, birth date, or other identifying information. This could be a total scam for the purpose of getting you to give them such personal identifying information so they can perform an identity theft. Even if it is a legitimate debt collection agency, if they are overzealous and/or incompetent, they may enter your identifying information into their records. ""Oh, you say your social security number isn't 123-45-6789, but 234-56-7890. Thank you, let me update our records. Now, sir, I see that the social security number in our records matches your social security number ..."" Step two: If they don't back off, contact a lawyer. Collection agencies work by -- call it ""intimidation"" or ""moral persuasion"", depending on your viewpoint. Years after my wife left me, she went bankrupt. A collection agency called me demanding payment of her debts before the bankruptcy went through. I noticed two things about this: One, We were divorced and I had no responsibility for her debts. Somehow they tracked down my new address and phone number, a place where she had never even lived. Why should I pay her debts? I had no legal obligation, nor did I see any moral obligation. Two, Their pitch was that she/I should pay off this debt before the bankruptcy was final. Why would anyone do that? The whole point of declaring bankruptcy is so you don't have to pay these debts. They were hoping to intimidate her into paying even though she wouldn't be legally obligated to pay. If you don't owe the money, of course there's no reason why you should pay it. If they continue to pursue you for somebody else's debt, in the U.S. you can sue them for harassment. There are all sorts of legal limits on what collection agencies are allowed to do. Actually even if they do back off, it might be worth contacting a lawyer. I suspect that asking your employer to garnish your wages without a court order, without even proof that you are responsible for this debt, is a tort that you could sue them for." I am not an expert in mattes of amending returns, but from what I heard you are allowed to go back four or five years and amend your returns (we are talking the American IRS here, right?). If they realized all this after that much time, it seems strange. I am wondering if something was left out of the story... I've talked to several very experienced accountants that deal with startup shares, stock 83(b)'s, etc. weekly (based in SF, CA) as this issue would have had a massive impact on me.  The most important part of filing an 83(b) is notifying the IRS within 30 days. The law requires the written notification within the 30 day window. Adding it to that years tax return is an IRS procedure. Forgetting to include a copy of that years tax return is apparently a common occurrence when no tax was owed (0 spread, you actually paid the FMV). And the accepted method to resolve this is to simply file a blank amendment for that years return and include the copy of the 83(b) election. In my county one can pay your taxes up front, or pay a fee and then pay in 2 installments.  I caught countrywide mortgages paying the fee (from my escrow account) then paying the 2 installments so that they could keep the interest over the 6 months.  After that I've always insisted on not having an escrow account. I'm assuming this is the US. Is this illegal? Are we likely to be caught? What could happen if   caught? If you sign an occupancy affidavit at closing that says you intend to move in within 60-days, with no intention of doing so, then you'll be committing fraud, specifically mortgage/occupancy fraud, a federal crime with potential for imprisonment and hefty fines. In general, moving in late is not something that's likely to be noticed, if the lender is getting their money then they probably don't care. Renting it out prior to moving in seems much riskier, especially if you live in a city/state that requires rental licensing, or are depending on rental income to carry the mortgage. No idea how frequently people are caught/punished for this type of fraud, but it hardly seems worth finding out. "Do I understand correctly, that we still can file as ""Married filing   jointly"", just add Schedule C and Schedule SE for her? Yes. Business registration information letter she got once registered   mentions that her due date for filing tax return is January 31, 2016.   Does this prevent us from filing jointly (as far as I understand, I   can't file my income before that date)? IRS sends no such letters. IRS also doesn't require any registration. Be careful, you might be a victim to a phishing attack here. In any case, sole proprietor files a regular individual tax return with the regular April 15th deadline. Do I understand correctly that we do not qualify as ""Family   partnership"" (I do not participate in her business in any way other   than giving her money for initial tools/materials purchase)? Yes. Do I understand correctly that she did not have to do regular   estimated tax payments as business was not expected to generate income   this year? You're asking or saying? How would we know what she expected? In any case, you can use your withholding (adjust the W4) to compensate." She filed for 0 withholdings in her W4, so my (unprofessional) guess   was that she'd be owed money, and therefore the IRS wouldn't care much   if she didn't file her taxes.† Maybe, but doesn't she want that money back? Is she at as much risk as any other individual of being audited and   penalized to the same degree if she skips filing her taxes? Audited and penalized are not the same. She's at the same risk of being audited, and even slightly higher since the IRS got reports of her wages, but didn't get the matching report from her. They may want to ask why. But it doesn't mean she's going to be penalized for anything. Being audited doesn't mean you did something wrong. Or does the IRS tend to overlook such individuals. The IRS might want to overlook because they're the ones owning money. She cannot get a refund without filing a tax return. She'd file her taxes today if she could, but the worry is that time's   running out Filing an extension is free and it postpones the deadline to file till OCTOBER! "Square use SSN to verify identity, and they only ask for the last 4 digits for that purpose. If she entered the full SSN - then she entered it into the tax id field, which was a wrong thing to do. It is also worth mentioning that since you mentioned a ""business partner"" that ""should have taken care of taxes"" that you should have a tax adviser whose job would be to take care of taxes and ensure that your interests are well-represented. I would suggest not to try interacting with the IRS on your own. Hire a tax adviser (EA/CPA licensed in your State) to do that. That tax adviser will be able to fix the problem (there are different ways of doing it, depending on the circumstances) and also verify that the business taxes were properly taken care of. When dealing with business partners - assume that what they've ""supposedly"" did was not done, until you see it with your own eyes. Saying that ""Supposedly, her business partner took care of all tax issues"" means, in this case, that you've been caught with unreported income that you tried to conceal. It is your (your sister's...) responsibility to prove otherwise. It is a very weak defense when the IRS comes knocking on the door for their money." "You need to hire a tax professional and have them sort it out for you properly and advise you on how to proceed next. Don't do it yourself, you're way past the stage when you could. You're out of compliance, and you're right - there are penalties that a professional might know how to mitigate, and maybe even negotiate a waiver with the IRS, depending on the circumstances of the case. Be careful of answers like ""you don't need to pay anything"" that are based on nothing of facts. Based on what you said in the question and in the comments, it actually sounds like you do have to pay something, and you're in trouble with the IRS already. It might be that you misunderstood something in the past (e.g.: you said the business had filed taxes before, but in fact that might never happened and you're confusing ""business filed taxes"" with ""I filed schedule C"") or it might be the actual factual representation of things (you did in fact filed a tax return for your business with the IRS, either form 1120 of some kind or 1065). In any case a good licensed (CPA or EA) professional will help you sort it out and educate you on what you need to do in the future." "I'm mostly guessing based on existing documentation, and have no direct experience, so take this with a pinch of salt. My best understanding is that you need to file Form 843. The instructions for the form say that it can be used to request: A refund or abatement of a penalty or addition to tax due to    reasonable cause or other reason (other than erroneous written    advice provided by the IRS) allowed under the law. The ""reasonable cause"" here is a good-faith confusion about what Line 79 of the form was referring to. In Form 843, the IRC Section Code you should enter is 6654 (estimated tax). For more, see the IRC Section 6654 (note, however, that if you already received a CP14 notice from the IRS, you should cross-check that this section code is listed on the notice under the part that covers the estimated tax penalty). If your request is accepted, the IRS should issue you Notice 746, item 17 Penalty Removed: You can get more general information about the tax collection process, and how to challenge it, from the pages linked from Understanding your CP14 Notice" "If you file the long-form Form 2210 in which you have to figure out  exactly how much you should have had withheld (or paid via quarterly payments of estimated tax), you might be able to reduce the underpayment penalty somewhat, or possibly eliminate it entirely.  This often happens because some of your income comes late in the year (e.g. dividend and capital gain distributions from stock mutual funds) and possibly because some of your itemized deductions come early (e.g. real estate tax bills due April 1, charitable deductions early in the year because of New Year resolutions to be more philanthropic) etc.  It takes a fair amount of effort to gather up the information you need for this (money management programs help), and it is easy to make mistakes while filling out the form. I strongly recommend use of a ""deluxe"" or ""premier"" version of a tax program - basic versions might not include Form 2210 or have only the short version of it. I also seem to remember something to the effect that the long form 2210 must be filed with the tax return and cannot be filed as part of an amended return, and if so, the above advice would be applicable to future years only. But you might be able to fill out the form and appeal to the IRS that you owe a reduced  penalty, or don't owe a penalty at all, and that your only mistake was not filing the long form 2210 with your tax return and so please can you be forgiven this once? In any case, I strongly recommend paying the underpayment   penalty ASAP because it is increasing day by day due to   interest being charged.  If the IRS agrees to your eloquent   appeal, they will refund the overpayment." "Obviously you have done well financially in order to be able to purchase a condo for cash, presumably, without risk of your other obligations.  To put things in perspective, we are probably talking about less than $5,000 in tax savings.   If she is on the title then she is a co-owner.  Are you okay with that?  You would essentially be giving this child a 50% stake in a property without compensation.  Will your other children be okay with it? As your question stated you would prefer to not have her as an owner.  However, is it better to not have her as an owner, So I would buy the condo without her on the title and just pay the extra $100 per month in property tax.  It is probably ""small potatoes"" in comparison to your net worth. I would also only charge her at most your cost of carrying the property as rent.  While you will create income all of it (and probably more) could be written off as costs.  There should be no income tax burden created from this situation.  Your accountant can help with any paperwork that needs to be filed."