California late filing penalty

[Stevehofwa]

Still not clear on how this works, law wasn’t written by human beings.  If I file late, after the automatic extension, do I owe penalties(5% per month) on the taxes(total taxes), or on the tax still due(taxes minus any withholding or payments made prior to the original April 15th due date)?

So I’m owed a refund is the penalty zero?

[Critter-3]

If you have a refund penalties are usually not assessed.   But if you have a balance due it was supposed to be paid with the extension  so  the failure to pay penalty plus interest is assessed from 4/15 to when it is finally paid.  Filing the extension only gives you more time to file not to pay.  

[Stevehofwa]

The California regulations are very confusingly written.  But I think the difference between the feds and ca is that ca assesses the penalties based on the original due date(April 15), not the extension date.  So for federal, the failure to file is from the due date with extension assuming there is one, whereas for ca it’s the original due date regardless of extension.  So if you are late with an extension for a month(let’s say nov 15), for the feds it 5% of the unpaid tax, whereas for ca it’s 25%, since it’s more than 6 mo late.  Is that correct?