Credit & Money Management

Fixing Five Painful Financial Screw-Ups

Forgot to pay your credit-card bill? Neglected to file a tax return? You can easily remedy these and other money blunders.

By Elizabeth Ody, Associate Editor

From Kiplinger's Personal Finance magazine, April 2008

You goofed. You just found a credit-card bill tucked into your car's sun visor -- and it's due today. You neglected to file your tax return, and you're afraid to 'fess up to Uncle Sam. You got nailed for your lead-footed driving, and you're worried that the other shoe will drop when your insurance bill arrives.

These and other financial screw-ups can result in a hit to your credit rating as well as your pocketbook. But it often takes only a little effort to make things right. Your best strategy is to come clean: Pick up the phone and call the people you've slighted. In most cases, you'll get a sympathetic ear and a reprieve.

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Pay up at the 11th hour. Steven Cowen lifted a stack of papers on his desk in La Jolla, Cal., and discovered at the bottom a credit-card bill that was due in a few hours. Fortunately, card issuers are usually just as eager to collect your money as you are to avoid credit-rating purgatory, so there are plenty of ways to pay at the last minute.

To avoid a black mark, Cowen called his MasterCard issuer, USAA, and arranged to make an electronic payment from his account at Union Bank of California. "They verified my identity and set up my checking account in their system, and now I can pay electronically either by phone or online in a matter of seconds," says Cowen, a financial adviser.

Delivering a check in person to the bank that issued your card is also a fine option for procrastinators. You won't incur any penalties, plus you get the added assurance of handing your money to a warm body.

If there's no bank branch nearby, call the number on the back of your card and ask about paying by phone or online. As long as you can transfer the funds by phone from a checking account with the same bank, you're in the clear.

Arranging to transfer money by phone from an account at another bank can be more cumbersome. And some banks charge a fee when you pay by phone -- Citibank and Bank of America each exact $15, for example. But with many banks moving services to the Web, most will now let you pay online from any checking account without charge.

Setting up automatic payments guarantees that you won't miss a deadline in the future. But Cowen still prefers to pay with a personal check. He'd rather "feel the pain" of his credit-card bill every month.

Make Uncle Sam your friend. Death and taxes may be the only certainties in life, but each year millions of people try to avoid the inevitable by not bothering to file a tax return -- even when they're owed money. Last year, the IRS reported that almost two million people who were owed refunds for 2003 forfeited more than $2 billion because they failed to file a return for that year.

If you still owe the IRS a return for 2006 or earlier, get a copy of that year's Form 1040 and determine whether the feds owe you a refund. If so, you have three years to claim it, and you won't be charged a penalty. The process is similar if you filed a return but missed claiming a deduction in the past three years. "You just have to file an amended return," says Janie Strasser, a certified public accountant in Spokane, Wash.

If you owe taxes for a year in which you failed to file, you'll need to settle up. "It's always better if you make the first move," says Greg Rosica, a tax partner with accounting firm Ernst & Young. Penalties accrue at a rate of 5% per month, up to 25%, and you'll also owe interest. If you filed a return but didn't make your payment, you should already be receiving bills. In that case, you'll incur a penalty of 0.5% a month, up to 25%, plus interest.

Coming clean may just work in your favor. John Bowen, a financial planner in Midlothian, Va., once advised a client who hadn't filed a tax return in four years and had just received a bill from the IRS for $140,000. When the IRS calculates your taxes, says Bowen, "it doesn't include itemized deductions, uses 'married filing separately' for the filing status, doesn't list a cost basis for securities sold, and doesn't include dependents." After recalculating his client's tab and filing the old returns, Bowen got his client a total refund of nearly $11,000 for the previous three years.

If you owe several years of unpaid taxes or you're having trouble tracking down the documents you need, consider hiring an accountant. And if you think you owe a lot of money -- because, say, you were self-employed for several years -- you may need a lawyer.

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