IRS Week
If you are beginning to panic about April 15 -- IRS day -- cool off. As long as you have paid your taxes in full and on time, you can file an automatic six-month extension for submitting the forms. The IRS has this philosophy: "Show us the money!" If they've got your money, don't worry about the forms. The IRS makes Form 4868 available on-line:
Actually, the IRS likes you to do this. It gets to keep your withholding money interest-free for up to an extra six months: no refund. It also gets out from under a huge number of returns.
If you have everything ready to file, no problem. Mail in your 1040 form on time. But some people tend to procrastinate. There is no need to panic.
There is something else. Maybe you have overpaid. If you don't have a CPA, and if you think you may need one, you can have him go over your return. He will have lots of free time, beginning in May. Right now, he's buried.
As for tax audits, there is no publicly available evidence that people who ask for the extension are more likely to get audited. A good article on what triggers an audit -- and how few audits are made -- is posted here:
There is a box on page 2 that shows what limits the IRS's computer probably uses to tag a return for an audit. If you have gone over this limit in a category, enclose photocopies of receipts and canceled checks that prove your case. If an IRS officer knows that you can easily prove your case, he probably will not demand an audit. It would waste IRS resources.
If you need any off-beat IRS forms in a hurry, you can find a lot of there here:
This is a page of links to the actual IRS forms.