Drake Software blog for tax pros, covering tax, IRS news, and more

The Top Tax Procrastinating Cities

The Top Tax Procrastinating Cities

The Top Tax Procrastinating Cities

If you spent the first week in April googling how to file your taxes, you are not alone in your procrastination. Studies found that nearly 1/3 (28%) of taxpayers wait to file their taxes until the month of April, with a fast approaching deadline of April 15th in their near future. However, you can’t call yourself a true procrastinator unless you still haven’t filed your taxes by April 15, and filed for an extension. TurboTax put together a list of cities that procrastinate filing their taxes (filed between April 8-14), so if you live in or near one of these, you have another excuse to be behind.

20. Albuquerque, NM

19. Richmond, VA

18. Atlanta, GA

17. Phoenix, AZ

16. Nashville, TN

15. Houston, TX

14. Chicago, IL

13. Dallas, TX

12. Pittsburgh, PA

11. Raleigh, NC

10. Portland, OR

9. San Diego, CA

8. Denver, CO

7. Minneapolis, MN

6. Austin, TX

5. Seattle, WA

4. Los Angeles, CA

3. Washington, DC

2. New York, NY

1. San Francisco, CA

Once a procrastinator, always a procrastinator.? When comparing this list to 2011,  every single city is still on this list.  Texas is the only state that has 3 of the top 20 procrastinating cities, with Houston,  Dallas, and Austin  all waiting until the last minute to file their taxes.

You’ve probably already noticed the irony that comes in the number 3 slot. The city where the IRS headquarters is located, not to mention where politicians and the president himself resides, is the third most procrastinating city when it comes to filing their taxes.

Perhaps the April 15 deadline sneaks up on the IRS because they are busy solving problems for  all the non-procrastinators. 

People are going to put off doing their taxes, nothing will make them file any sooner. However, if you are going to get a refund, the obvious upside to filing sooner is receiving your refund earlier. And, as we have seen this tax season, if you wait to file, the IRS may be experiencing processing errors which could potentially cause your refunds to take a lot longer than they might have taken at the beginning of tax season.

There are other reasons not to procrastinate filing your taxes… but I’ll wait to tell you those until tomorrow.

 

By Katie Sapp, Industry Writer

admin taxing_subjects