California State Penalties for Non-Filing of Taxes
- If you don't file a California tax return, you will be penalized.money makes money image by Andrey Andreev from Fotolia.com
Nobody enjoys paying taxes, but if you don't pay your income taxes, you'll find yourself in trouble. Each year, 16 million personal tax returns are filed in California that generate about $40 billion in taxes for the state. When you don't file a return, the Franchise Tax Board is charged with finding you and imposing penalties and fines for your failure to file. - If a taxpayer fails to file a return by the due date, they will be assessed a penalty of 5 percent of the tax due for every month that the return is late, up to a maximum of 25 percent of the tax due. The minimum penalty in this situation is $100 or all of the tax shown on the return. If fraud is determined in the failure to file, the penalty is 15 percent for each month the tax is late up to 75 percent of the tax owed. The penalty may be waived if you can show reasonable cause.
- If a taxpayer fails to provide information requested by the Franchise Tax Board or fails to file a return after be notified to do so, a penalty of 25 percent of the tax owed will be added without any regard to the payments or credits, according to the Franchise Tax Board. The penalty may be waived if you can show reasonable cause.
- If a tax preparer is required to file returns electronically as outlined in the state tax code and fails to do so, he or she will be fined $50 for each failure. The penalty may be waived if the tax preparer can show that the taxpayer for whom the return was prepared elected not to file them electronically.
- California requires information be filed as part of your tax return regarding your tax-deferred savings accounts. If you fail to file the information or overstate the amount you contribute to the account, you can be fined $50 to $100 per occurrence. The penalty may be waived if you can show reasonable cause.
