Paying your taxes with credit cards:  As we wrapped up another tax season, we had several clients asking about paying balances due to the US Treasury or state department of revenue with credit cards.  Taxpayers do have the option of paying with credit cards as it is a convenient way of paying your income tax bills.  You can make these payments 24 hours a day, seven days a week, using certain major credit cards or debit cards. Below are links to the IRS website and Minnesota Revenue for your reference.

The link for paying federal taxes by credit card is:

https://www.irs.gov/payments/pay-taxes-by-credit-or-debit-card

The link for paying Minnesota taxes by credit card is:

https://paytax.at/mn/SelectService/SelectService

You can pay tax due on your federal or state individual tax return, extension payments, quarterly estimated tax payments along with other types of tax payments using a credit card.  For any credit card payment, the authorization date of the credit card charge is considered the payment date for purposes of determining whether the payment was timely. Credit card payments cannot generally be cancelled.

One advantage of using the credit card method, aside from the obvious one of being able to delay paying your tax liability, is that if you participate in any credit card incentive program, such as airline mileage or certain reward programs, you will earn points by charging your taxes. A disadvantage is the convenience fee charged by service providers (both for credit and debit card transactions). This fee is in addition to any interest your credit card issuer will charge. Taxpayers are informed of the convenience fee amount before the payment is authorized.   In most cases we have found that the extra cost of paying for using a credit card versus writing a check or electronic withdrawal outweighs the benefits. If you have any questions, please contact John Csargo, CPA, MBT, CFP at jcsargo@myboyum.com