Still haven’t filed your taxes?

With less than 24 hours until the April 15 tax deadline, time is running out to file your 2024 federal tax return or request an extension. It also may be your last chance to claim a refund on a prior year’s return. 

Nearly one-third of Americans admit they procrastinate when it comes to filing their taxes, according to a survey of more than 1,000 U.S. tax filers from IPX1031, an investment property exchange service. The survey also found that about 25% do not feel prepared to file their taxes.  

“Procrastination is a natural response when something feels overwhelming,” said certified financial therapist Erika Wasserman, CEO of Your Financial Therapist. “But delaying important tasks like filing taxes only compounds stress.”

Meanwhile, some people may also assume that given staffing cuts at the Internal Revenue Service, taxpayers should wait to file and pay or not pay at all. Think twice before heeding that advice, experts warn. 

“Beyond the fact that filing and paying is the law, a lot of the agency’s compliance activities are actually pretty routine, such as matching W-2s and 1099s against what’s reported on tax returns, generating tax assessments, and assessing various late-filing, late-payment, and estimated tax penalties,” explained IRS spokesman Eric Smith in an email to CNBC.

Most taxpayers, however, have already filed their federal tax returns.

As of April 4, the IRS received roughly 101 million individual returns of the 160 million expected this filing season, the agency’s latest report shows. Nearly 68 million refunds have been issued, with the average refund amount of $3,116, about 3.5% more than a year ago.

For most taxpayers, the federal tax deadline is April 15. If you’re missing tax forms or need more time, you can file a tax extension by April 15, which pushes the federal filing deadline to Oct. 15.  However, you still must pay your taxes by the original due date to avoid racking up penalties and interest.

Choosing “extension” when making a payment electronically on the IRS website for 2024 will automatically submit Form 4868, the document needed to request an extension.

“With all the check theft and check-washing schemes going on right now, e-pay is a great option, plus you get the peace of mind of knowing, right away, that the IRS got your payment,” Smith said.

(Check washing is a form of check fraud where thieves steal checks, erase the original payee and amount, and then rewrite the check for their own benefit.)

Payment options, including IRS Direct Pay, are available at IRS.gov/payments. 

You can also mail the extension Form 4868 by April 15 and include a check for what you owe, but processing times may be longer.

If you cannot pay your tax balance by April 15, you still need to file your return to avoid a higher IRS penalty, experts say.  

The failure-to-file penalty is 5% of unpaid taxes per month or partial month, capped at 25%. Meanwhile, the failure-to-pay penalty is 0.5% of taxes owed per month, limited to 25%. Both penalties incur interest, which is currently 7% for individuals.

Taxpayers can find details at IRS.gov/disasterrelief. 

“For many, it’s more important than ever to do this because, in part due to the pandemic, a number of tax benefits were expanded for tax year 2021, including the stimulus-related Recovery Rebate Credit, the Child Tax Credit, the Credit for Child and Dependent Care Expenses and the Earned Income Tax Credit,” Smith said.

“Most of the expanded benefits were refundable, making them especially lucrative for low-and moderate-income individuals and families.”

If you’re unsure if you received the money, there’s a simple way to check via your IRS account online, tax experts say.

The 2021 stimulus payments were worth up to $1,400 per individual, or $2,800 per married couple. A family of four could receive up to $5,600 with two eligible dependents.

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New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine made history in 2018 when it became the first top-ranked medical program to offer full-tuition scholarships to all students, regardless of need or merit. 

The number of applicants, predictably, spiked in the year that followed. But then, the share of incoming students considered “financially disadvantaged” sank to 3% in 2019, down from 12% in 2017, reports showed. 

“Tuition-free schools can actually increase inequity,” said Jamie Beaton, co-founder and CEO of Crimson Education, a college consulting firm. 

“Tuition-free colleges experience surges in application numbers, dramatically boosting the competitive intensity of the admissions process,” he said. “This in turn can skew admissions towards middle- or higher-income applicants who may be able to access more effective admissions resources, such as tutoring or extracurriculars.”

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“Our goal for tuition-free education was to clear pathways for the best and brightest future doctors from all backgrounds to attend NYU Grossman School of Medicine without the stress of taking on the average $200,000 in debt medical students typically incur,” Arielle Sklar, a spokesperson for the school told CNBC. “This allows students to align career choices with their passions in medicine rather than immediate economic pressures.”

Sklar, however, did not directly address the issue of declining low-income student enrollment.

Since the initiative by NYU’s Grossman School of Medicine, other top schools and programs have embraced the tuition-free model.

Harvard University was the latest undergraduate school to announce that it will be tuition free for undergraduates with family incomes of up to $200,000 beginning in the 2025-26 academic year, following similar initiatives at Vanderbilt University, Dartmouth, University of Pennsylvania and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Nearly two dozen more schools have also introduced “no-loan” policies, which means student loans are eliminated altogether from their financial aid packages.

In the case of Harvard, “you may see a trend of families with income closer to $200,000 outcompeting low-income students for slots,” Beaton said. “This may shift the proportion of Harvard students from the top 1% of income down, but it might also decrease the share of low-income students to the benefit of middle or middle-upper income families.”

More generous aid packages and tuition-free policies remove the most significant financial barrier to higher education but attract more higher-income applicants, other experts also say. 

“Even though it sounds like lower-income students are going to be advantaged, it’s the middle class that’s going to win here,” said Christopher Rim, president and CEO of college consulting firm Command Education.

“These colleges are trying to build a well-rounded class, they need middle class and wealthy students as well,” he added. “They are not trying to take fewer rich kids — they need them because they’re the ones that are also going to be donating.”

For lower income students, “anything that increases the number of applications will be detrimental,” said Eric Greenberg, president of Greenberg Educational Group, a New York-based consulting firm.

These days, taking on too much debt is the top worry among all college-bound students, according to a survey by The Princeton Review. 

College tuition has soared by 5.6% a year, on average, since 1983, significantly outpacing other household expenses, a recent study by J.P. Morgan Asset Management also found.

This rapid increase means that college costs have risen much faster than inflation, leaving families to shoulder a larger share of the expenses, experts say.

For the 2024-25 school year, tuition and fees plus room and board for a four-year private college averaged $58,600, up from $56,390 a year earlier. At four-year, in-state public colleges, it was $24,920, up from $24,080, according to the College Board.

To bridge the affordability gap, some of the nation’s top institutions are in an “affordability arms race,” according to Hafeez Lakhani, founder and president of Lakhani Coaching in New York. 

However, overall, most institutions do not have the financial wherewithal to offer tuition-free or no-loan aid programs, added Robert Franek, The Princeton Review’s editor in chief. “More than 95% of four-year colleges in the U.S. are tuition driven,” he said. 

Even if a school does not offer enough aid at the outset, there are other ways to bring costs down, according to James Lewis, co-founder of National Society of High School Scholars.

“Get beyond, ‘I can’t afford that,”‘ he said. “A lot of institutions will have a retail price but that’s not necessarily what a student will pay.”

Many schools will provide access to additional resources that can lower the total tab, he said, either through scholarships, financial aid or work-study opportunities.  

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The tax deadline is days away — and the IRS is urging taxpayers to file returns on time and “pay as much as they can.”

However, if you can’t cover your total tax balance, there are options for the remaining taxes owed, according to the agency.

For most tax filers, April 15 is the due date for federal returns and taxes. But your federal deadline could be later if your state or county was impacted by a natural disaster.

If you are in the military stationed abroad or are in a combat zone during the tax filing season, you may qualify for certain automatic extensions related to the filing and paying of your federal income taxes.

Additionally, those living and working abroad also have extra time to file. 

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If you’re missing tax forms or need more time, You can file a tax extension by April 15, which pushes the federal filing deadline to Oct. 15.  

But “it’s an extension to file, not an extension to pay,” said Jo Anna Fellon, managing director at financial services firm CBIZ.

The failure-to-file penalty is 5% of unpaid taxes per month or partial month, capped at 25%.

By comparison, the failure-to-pay penalty is 0.5% of taxes owed per month, limited to 25%. Both penalties incur interest, which is currently 7% for individuals.

“File on time and pay what you can,” said Misty Erickson, tax content manager at the National Association of Tax Professionals. “You’re going to reduce penalties and interest.” 

Don’t panic if you can’t cover the full balance by April 15 because you may have payment options, she said.

“The IRS wants to work with you,” Erickson added.

“Most individual taxpayers can qualify for a payment plan,” the IRS said in a recent news release.

The “quickest and easiest way” to sign up is by using the online payment agreement, which may include a setup fee, according to the agency.

These payment options include:

• Short-term payment plan: This may be available if you owe less than $100,000 including tax, penalties and interest. You have up to 180 days to pay in full.

• Long-term payment plan: You’ll have this option if your balance is less than $50,000 including tax, penalties and interest. The monthly payment timeline is up to the IRS “collection statute,” which is typically 10 years.  

The agency has recently revamped payment plans, to make the program “easier and more accessible.”