Help at hand for North Coast residents as tax deadline looms

With Tax Day just five days away, tax preparers are working long hours to process their clients' returns and the California attorney general is warning people to be wary of scams.

And many taxpayers, as usual, are putting off the whole thing.

About 11.5 million California taxpayers had filed their personal income returns as of Monday, and another 3 million to 4 million returns are expected to flow in over the next few weeks, Franchise Tax Board spokesman Daniel Tahara said Tuesday.

Already, $6.5 billion in refunds have been issued for the 2015 tax year, the same as the previous year, with an average refund of $823 for 2015 compared with $815 for 2014, he said.

About 1.5 million taxpayers will, as usual, take advantage of California's automatic six-month extension, giving them until Oct. 15 to file their return. But those who owe money must submit payments by Monday's deadline, Tahara said.

Rob Kirby, a Santa Rosa accountant who's been handling tax returns for 31 years, said about 60 percent of his clients file on time, while the rest opt for extensions. Most of the latter are “habitual late filers,” also known as procrastinators, he said.

But Kirby, who will be working 12-hour days through Sunday, is happy to have them because extensions “streamline the workload a little bit.” It takes 10 to 15 minutes to file an extension versus two to three hours for a full tax return, he said.

For self-employed workers, filing in October is advantageous because they can more accurately gauge how business has gone for this year before they decide how much they can afford to put in their retirement account for the previous year.

“Procrastination is part of taxes,” he said, noting that people still have to pay 90 percent of what they owe on the April deadline.

For tax preparers, this time of year is “a flat-out marathon sprint,” Kirby said.

With billions of dollars involved, there's plenty of potential for criminal fraud involved in taxation.

Attorney General Kamala Harris warned of tax season scams, including one of the most common: An unsolicited call or email from someone claiming to represent the Internal Revenue Service, proffering the lure of an unexpected tax refund or demanding payment for a phony tax bill.

People should hang up the phone or delete the email, Harris said in a written statement, because the IRS does not initiate contact with taxpayers by telephone or online.

More than $30 million is lost to phone scams a year nationwide, including $6 million in California, IRS spokesman Raphael Tulino said in an audio alert posted online by the California Department of Justice.

Scammers “try to scare people into giving them money and personal information over the telephone,” he said.

The IRS notifies taxpayers of their payment shortfalls by letter, not threatening phone calls, Tulino said.

Kirby said the agency typically sends follow-up letters, but if the taxpayer does not respond he or she may suddenly find the unpaid taxes removed from their bank account.

Seniors are often targets of phone scam attempts because they tend to have landline phones, are home during the day and live alone, with no one to consult about a call, said Nick Akers, head of the consumer law section of the state Department of Justice.

People who fall victim to the scams are “often those who can least afford it,” he said in the audio alert.

Tulino also advised that taxpayers should choose a tax preparer carefully, just as they would select a physician or a child care worker.

Most tax preparers are reputable, but there are some “bad apples out there” and if one of them “files a bogus return for you, you could get left holding the bag,” he said.

Nearly two-thirds of California taxpayers use a tax preparer, the Franchise Tax Board said.

The IRS maintains a directory of qualified tax preparer, including those that provide free assistance to seniors, disabled people, individuals whose first language is not English and those with incomes under $54,000.

You can reach Staff Writer Guy Kovner at 521-5457 or guy.kovner@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @guykovner.