Penalties and late fees are a percentage of what you owed. So there will be no federal penalty for filing late if you are expecting a refund. NY may send you a bill.
- The penalty for late filing is 5% of what you owe, per month, for the first 5 months, then 0.5% per month after that.
- The penalty for late payment is 0.5% of the amount you owe, except that no late payment penalty is charged for any month when you are charged a late filing penalty of 5%.
- Interest is a variable rate that is around 3% APR.
(NY's penalties and interest rules look like they follow the federal rules.) So you are looking at $18 of potential penalties, plus another $2 of interest.
The penalty is waived if your tax payments (withholding) are more than your last years' tax, and if this is the first year you filed, then last year's tax was zero, so you may be completely exempt from paying a penalty. (This is sometimes thought of as a first-year exemption, although that is not technically true.)
So at most you might owe NY an extra $20. It's definitely not the end of the world.
