This is not a drill. For the 19 million people who filed for a tax extension, the final, no-more-excuses deadline (even with the shutdown) is October 15th—tomorrow. The snooze button is officially broken, the grace period has expired, and the IRS is waiting. It’s time to file now, or penalties will begin to accumulate.

If you're staring down the deadline in a panic, don't go it alone. The pros at TaxQuotes can help you file correctly and on time. Get a free consultation today and stop tax problems in their tracks.

This week’s lineup:

• Back from the Dead: A guide for the 7 million Americans who ghost the IRS each year, covering how to get back on the grid without ending up in paperwork purgatory.

• IRS on Forced Vacation: The government is shut down, but your tax problems aren't. Here's what to do when the IRS hangs up a "Gone Fishing" sign.

• A Business Up in Smoke: The wild, true-crime story of two brothers who tried to use arson to cover up years of tax fraud.

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Back from the Dead: How to File a Return After Ghosting the IRS

So, You’ve Been Off the IRS Grid

You’re in good (or at least crowded) company. More than 7 million Americans skip filing each year. Not all of them are criminals, millionaires, or Nicolas Cage on a spending spree. Sometimes it’s an illness. Sometimes it’s a job loss. Sometimes it’s pure, undiluted procrastination.    

What Happens When You Don’t File

• The IRS might file a Substitute for Return (SFR) on your behalf. Spoiler: they will not include deductions, credits, or the creative business expense of “morale-boosting pizza.”

• Penalties and interest start stacking like Tetris blocks.

• Prison? Rarely. This is paperwork purgatory, not Alcatraz. 

Step One: Gather Your Docs

Start with the Most Recent Year

Filing your latest return first is like waving a white flag and shouting, “I’m alive, I’m cooperating, and I brought snacks” (in the form of W-2s and 1099s). It shows the IRS you’re back in the system and you’re serious about it.

Request Wage and Income Transcripts

Use IRS Form 4506-T or the Get Transcript tool online to see what the IRS thinks you earned. They’re usually right, but you’ll want your records to double-check.

Should You Go Full Confessional?

File Just One Year or Go Back Several?

The IRS generally wants the past six years of tax returns, but every case will be different. If you’re due refunds, you’ve only got three years to claim them before they vanish into the Treasury’s snack fund.

When to Phone a Friend (or a Pro)

If you owe a hefty sum, your income’s complicated, or you once claimed your ex’s dog as a dependent, bring in a tax professional. They’ll know the safest way forward. 

You've gathered your courage and your documents. So what happens after you finally send that letter and poke the IRS bear?

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The IRS Is (Mostly) Closed. Here's What That Means For Your Money.

If you thought things in D.C. couldn't get any weirder, hold our beer. The federal government has officially shut down, and the IRS has gone into hibernation mode. They recently released their “contingency plan,” which is a fancy way of saying, “Here’s a list of all the things we’re not going to do until Congress figures this out.”

So, what does this mean for you?

Let’s get the bad news out of the way first. For the foreseeable future, the IRS has furloughed a considerable chunk of its staff. The following services are officially on ice:

• No Tax Refunds: If you were waiting on a refund, keep waiting. No money is going out the door.

• No Phone Support: Got a question for the IRS? Good luck. The call sites are not being staffed.

• No Help Desk: The Taxpayer Advocate Service, the group designed to be your lifeline when you have a serious issue, is also closed.

• No Audits (Maybe a Silver Lining?): All audit functions and examinations are paused.

• No Processing Amended Returns: If you filed an amended return, it’s going to be sitting in a pile for a while.

What’s still running, you ask? The important stuff, obviously. The IRS will continue processing returns with payments and ensure all other remittances are handled. 

So, what are you supposed to do if you have a pressing tax issue and the one agency you need help from has basically gone fishing? It’s a tough spot, and you definitely don’t want to let a problem get worse while you wait for Washington to get its act together.

This is where we’d usually give you some tips, but honestly, now is the time to call in a professional. We have some friends over at TaxQuotes who live for this stuff. They can help you figure out your options and get a plan in place, even while the IRS is on a forced vacation.

Click here for a free consultation and start your financial comeback tour.

From Bad Books to a Fiery Exit: The Dawara Brothers’ Tax Fraud Story

Most stories about tax fraud involve quiet audits and stern letters from the IRS. This is not one of them. The Dawara brothers’ story starts with fewer spreadsheets and significantly more fire trucks.

On February 18, 2018, at 3:11 a.m. — an hour when only bakers and people up to no good are awake — a massive fire erupted in Philadelphia's Old City. The blaze, with the kind of get-up-and-go you rarely see outside a Hollywood action movie, was so intense that it displaced 160 residents and shut down the block for weeks.

As firefighters waged war on the flames, the owners of the hookah lounge where it all started, brothers Imad and Bahaa Dawara, were reportedly sleeping soundly, dreaming the sweet dreams of men whose biggest problem had just gone up in smoke. 

Or so they thought.

A Business Up in Smoke

So, how did their business, a hookah lounge that hadn't seen a customer in months,  become the epicenter of such a disaster?

The company was failing, which is generally what happens when customers stop showing up. When a business fails, the rent stops getting paid. And when the rent stops getting paid, the landlord shows you the door. It’s the circle of life for capitalism.

Faced with this dire outcome, the Dawara brothers chose an exit strategy you won't find in any business textbook. On the exact day of their scheduled eviction, they took out a $750,000 insurance policy. And the fine print on this policy, you may be shocked to learn, covered accidental fire.

The timing was, to put it gently, a little on the nose.

When the IRS Responds to a Fire Alarm

Now, we’re no Sherlock Holmes, but a fire in an empty, failing business on eviction day tends to raise an eyebrow or two. The fire marshal, the ATF and, most importantly for our story, the IRS were called in.

And the IRS typically doesn't respond to fires unless they involve a silo full of W-2s, so you know something was financially amiss.

Investigators agreed. In October 2019, the brothers were indicted on charges that read like a masterclass in poor decision-making. There was the obvious: conspiracy to commit arson and wire fraud.

They had even asked their insurance broker how one gets paid "if there's a fire" — a question that falls squarely into the category of "Things You Should Never, Ever Ask Out Loud."

The arson, however, was merely the explosive finale to a long history of financial deception.

The fire was the smokescreen. The real crime was buried in the ledgers. See the years of tax fraud the Dawara brothers were so desperate to hide.

The quick (and slightly prickly) stories we didn’t have time to get to:

• For the 19 million people who filed a tax extension, an ill-timed government shutdown could throw a wrench into the works, potentially leaving them unable to get help or even make payments online.

• Thanks to a new law and a bit of inflation, the amount you can pass on to your heirs without triggering the estate tax is projected to jump by over $1 million in 2026.

• The Social Security Administration's commissioner has been appointed to the newly created role of CEO of the IRS, a move that has some experts worried about potential conflicts of interest and a leadership vacuum at both agencies.

• The IRS is officially phasing out paper checks and will stop issuing paper tax refunds after September 30th, 2025, a move that will require all taxpayers to have a method for receiving electronic payments.

Think you're a tax whiz? Prove it with our trivia question below.