Finance

What is Tax Day? A look into the final day for Americans to get their tax returns and payments to the IRS

Published

6 months ago

April 12, 2024

Judy Shelton and Grover Norquist discuss the amount of U.S. debt under President Biden and the impending increase in taxes after Trump-era tax cuts expire on “The Evening Edit.”

Tax Day is quickly nearing, meaning the clock is winding down for Americans to file their returns.

You can file your taxes electronically or by mail. Submitting electronically will make for the faster receipt of a refund and is the quickest way to get your information filed to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). If you do file by mail, make sure your envelope is postmarked by the due date.

Make sure you have all your documentation together and submit it before the filing deadline to avoid any fees.

Tax Day traditionally falls on April 15. (iStock)

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Here’s everything you need to know about Tax Day.

What is Tax Day?
When is Tax Day?
When did Tax Day begin?
What do I do if I miss the tax deadline?

1. What is Tax Day?

Tax Day marks when taxes are due in the United States. Taxes must be filed and paid by this date.

If you don’t pay your taxes on time, you’ll receive a Failure to File penalty from the IRS. This penalty is 5% of unpaid taxes for each month or part of a month that the return is late, according to the IRS, not exceeding 25% of unpaid taxes.

To avoid fees, make sure your return is filed and taxes are paid by Tax Day. (iStock)

2. When is Tax Day?

Typically, it falls on April 15, although it could fluctuate slightly from year to year. The main reason the date could change is if April 15 falls on a holiday or on a weekend.

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This year, April 15 is Tax Day for Americans, except for those in Maine or Massachusetts. Residents in those two states have a tax deadline of April 17, due to Patriots’ Day and Emancipation Day holidays, according to the IRS.

3. When did Tax Day begin?

The first time federal income tax was introduced to Americans was in 1862 by Abraham Lincoln, according to the IRS, in order to help pay for expenses associated with the Civil War. The first official Tax Day was in 1913 and had a March 1 due date, according to the Library of Congress.

In 1954, the filing deadline for individual tax returns was marked on April 15, according to the IRS, which has remained the modern deadline.

The push in the date helps tax filers by giving them extra time to gather financial information but also helps others in the tax filing process. Accountants receive additional time to help others file their taxes, and the IRS also has more time to work.

4. What do I do if I miss the tax deadline?

If you are unable to get your taxes filed by Tax Day, you can apply for a tax extension.

If you can’t get your taxes in by the deadline, you can file for an extension. (Daniel Acker / Bloomberg / File / Getty Images)

You must file your request by Tax Day in order to be granted an extension. You can request an extension through Oct. 15, according to the IRS.

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You can file an extension with Form 4868, according to the IRS. You can do this by mail, online or through a tax professional.

Finance

China’s Alibaba claims AI translation tool beats Google, ChatGPT

Published

9 hours ago

October 16, 2024

Business Finance News

Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba has invested heavily in its fast-growing international business as growth slows for its China-focused Taobao and Tmall business.

Nurphoto | Nurphoto | Getty Images

BEIJING — Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba‘s international arm on Wednesday launched an updated version of its artificial intelligence-powered translation tool that, it says, is better than products offered by Google, DeepL and ChatGPT.

That’s based on an assessment of Alibaba International’s new model, Marco MT, by translation benchmark framework Flores, the Chinese company said.

Alibaba’s fast-growing international unit released the AI translation product as an update to one unveiled about a year ago, which it says already has 500,000 merchant users. Sellers based in one country can use the translation tool to create product pages in the language of the target market.

The new version is based only on large language models, allowing it to draw on contextual clues such as culture or industry-specific terms, Kaifu Zhang, vice president of Alibaba International Digital Commerce Group and head of the business’ artificial intelligence initiative, told CNBC in an interview Tuesday.

“The idea is that we want this AI tool to help the bottom line of the merchants, because if the merchants are doing well, the platform will be doing well,” he said.

Large language models power artificial intelligence applications such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which can also translate text. The models, trained on massive amounts of data, can generate humanlike responses to user prompts.

Alibaba’s translation tool is based on its own model called Qwen. The product supports 15 languages: Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Turkish and Ukrainian.

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Zhang said he expects “substantial demand” for the tool from Europe and the Americas. He also expects emerging markets to be a significant area of use.

When users of Alibaba.com — a site for suppliers to sell to businesses — are categorized by country, developing countries account for about half of the top 20 active AI tool users, Zhang said.

Chinese companies have increasingly looked abroad for growth opportunities, especially e-commerce merchants. PDD Holdings‘ Temu, fast fashion seller Shein and ByteDance’s TikTok are among the recent global market entrants. Many China-based merchants also sell on Amazon.com.

Contextual clues

Since Alibaba launched the first version of its AI translation tool last fall, the company said merchants have used it for more than 100 million product listings. Similar to other AI-based services, the basic pricing charges merchants by the amount of translated text.

Zhang declined to share how much the updated version would cost. He said it was included in some service bundles for merchants wanting simple exposure to overseas users.

His thinking is that contextual translation makes it much more likely that consumers decide to buy. He shared an example in which a colloquial Chinese description for a slipper would have turned off English-speaking consumers if it was only translated literally, without getting at the implied meaning.

“The updated translation engine is going to make Double 11 a better experience for consumers because of more authentic expression,” Zhang said, in reference to the Alibaba-led shopping festival that centers on Nov. 11 each year.

Alibaba’s international business includes platforms such as AliExpress and Lazada, which primarily targets Southeast Asia. The international unit reported sales growth of 32% to $4.03 billion in the quarter ended June from a year ago.

That’s in contrast to a 1% year-on-year drop in sales to $15.6 billion for Alibaba’s main Taobao and Tmall e-commerce business, which has focused on China.

The Taobao app is also popular with consumers in Singapore. In September, the app launched an AI-powered English version for users in the country.

Nomura analysts expect that Alibaba’s international revenue slowed slightly to 29% year-on-year growth in the quarter ended September, while operating losses narrowed, according to an Oct. 10 report. Alibaba has yet to announce when it will release quarterly earnings.