I see everyone writing that you can GENERALLY only claim a refund for up to 3 years. What does that mean - is there a possibility of submitting later if there was a significant overpayment? I just realized for the last 8-9 years I've been entering in HR Block the net employee wages on my schedule C line 26 as opposed to the total wages which would have included the withheld portion that I paid to state and federal every month. I'm not referring to the employer (line 23) or employee (not deductible) portion of FICA and unemployment etc. In a year my total pay was $139,000, I only deducted the net employee pay of $113,000! I'm reading when you pay too little the IRS can come knocking even 10 years later, so it's a bit shocking when the roles are reversed and we are disadvantaged, all of a sudden there's a 3 year limit!
in my opinion anyway, i get there may need to be some limit due to the manpower at the IRS, but such a limit should only apply when the overpayment is minimal. If you overpay by thousands, there's really no good reason why any company/organization/government body should be able to say 'sorry, too late.' rather than swindle DIY filers for their errors, it would be far more efficient a solution for the government to only accept professionally prepared forms for business filers to avoid errors in the first place. In fact, they should pay for businesses to hire a professional. It'll create more jobs for accountants and limit needless errors and need for auditing.
