ClarissaA
Employee Tax Expert

Get your taxes done using TurboTax

If you don't have a balance due when you file the return, the consequences of filing late are rather minor.  Take a deep breath and let all the tax anxiety that you are carrying flow out when you let that breath back out.  

 

You have three years from the due date of the original return to file in order to claim a refund for the tax year.  If you don't file for the refund by that deadline, the IRS is no longer required to give you the money back.   In that situation, you are giving the government a gift of your refund.  If you have the tax documents gathered to file the returns, I would strongly suggest you work on getting the 2021 and 2022 returns filed.  

 

TurboTax Online will only allow you to prepare the current year's return.  In order to file the 2021 return you would need to download the appropriate TurboTax Desktop software (which can not be installed on a mobile device such as a phone or tablet - you will need access to a computer to use it.)  Turbo Tax Past Year's Products I included a link  for you to make it easy to find!    If you prepare the 2021 return first, you can use the information from your completed return to help set up your 2022 return to speed up the process.  

 

While filing the tax years in order is recommended, if you don't have any carryovers from a prior tax year to account for, then you could file the 2022 return first.  This could be beneficial as the IRS will accept e-filing for the tax year until October 16, 2023.   An e-filed return gets processed faster and generally means your refund will make it back to you a lot sooner.   

 

In any event, you should not include information from multiple tax years into one return.  If you opt to wait until January, you will still need to file three returns - one for each tax year.  


I hope this information helps (and maybe takes a bit of the stress away!) 

Clarissa
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