Filing a Tax Extension in New York: More Time to File, Not More Time to Pay

If your tax return is not ready by early April, filing an extension is the right call. That's not unusual, and it's not a red flag. Millions of taxpayers file extensions every year, and the IRS treats them as routine. What matters is understanding what an extension actually does, and just as important, what it does not do.

The Deadline That Does Not Move

Filing an extension moves your return deadline from April 15 to October 15. It does not move your payment deadline. If you owe federal taxes, April 15 is still the due date. That does not change.

If you do not pay by April 15 and you owe, the IRS will charge a failure-to-pay penalty of 0.5% per month on the unpaid balance, up to a maximum of 25%, plus interest. Paying as much as you can by the original deadline reduces or eliminates that penalty, even if your return is not ready.

If you are expecting a refund, none of this applies. There is no penalty for filing late when the government owes you money. The only consequence is that your refund arrives later.

The Federal Extension: Form 4868

To extend your federal filing deadline, you file IRS Form 4868 by April 15, 2026. This gives you until October 15, 2026 to file your 2025 return. The extension is automatic. The IRS does not need to approve it, and you do not have to explain why you need more time.

When filing Form 4868, you will need to provide:

• Your name, address, and Social Security number

• An estimate of your total 2025 tax liability

• The total payments you have already made, including withholding and any estimated tax payments

• Any balance due, which you should pay at the same time

You can file Form 4868 electronically through tax software, through a tax professional, or by mail. If you file electronically and make a payment through IRS Direct Pay at the same time, you can check a box indicating the payment is part of an extension request. The IRS will confirm the extension automatically.

New York State Requires a Separate Extension: Form IT-370

Filing a federal extension does not automatically extend your New York State filing deadline. This is where many New York taxpayers run into problems. New York requires its own form: Form IT-370, Application for Automatic Six-Month Extension of Time to File.

Like the federal extension, Form IT-370 must be filed by April 15, 2026, and extends the New York filing deadline to October 15, 2026. And like the federal extension, it does not extend the time to pay. Any New York State income tax owed is still due April 15.

There is a shortcut worth knowing: if you make your state tax payment electronically through the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance website at tax.ny.gov, that payment automatically serves as your extension request. You do not need to file a separate Form IT-370 in that case. If you do not expect to owe New York tax, a separate IT-370 may not be required, but confirm your situation before assuming no filing is needed.

Do not submit a copy of your federal Form 4868 to New York. The state will not accept it in place of Form IT-370, and your state deadline will not be extended.

What Happens If You Miss the Extension Deadline?

Extensions must be filed by April 15. You cannot request one after the deadline has passed. If you miss it and you owe taxes, the IRS can assess a failure-to-file penalty of 5% per month on the unpaid balance, up to 25%. That penalty starts the moment the original deadline passes, and it is considerably more expensive than the 0.5% failure-to-pay penalty. Filing the extension on time eliminates it entirely.

If you miss the deadline and owe, file your return as soon as possible. Every month you wait adds to what you owe.

Sometimes the Return Is Complicated, Not Just Incomplete

Some people extend because they are waiting on a document. Others extend because something real changed in their financial life in 2025, and the return they are looking at is genuinely more complicated than anything they have filed before. Both are legitimate reasons. The second category is the one people sometimes feel they should push through, and often should not.

A parent died and left an estate that included a brokerage account, an IRA, or real estate. That alone creates multiple tax questions: distributions, stepped-up basis calculations, and possibly a partial-year 1099 from an account that transferred mid-year.

That is not a return to rush.

You retired in 2025. There is W-2 income for part of the year, a pension or Social Security payment starting partway through, and maybe a lump-sum retirement distribution on top of it.

First-year retirement returns are frequently messier than people expect. The withholding picture looks nothing like prior years, and the math takes time to sort out correctly.

You sold a business or a piece of it in 2025. The closing happened, the money changed hands, but the tax picture is still being worked out. Asset sales involve allocating the purchase price across individual components, some of which are taxed as capital gains and some as ordinary income. Depreciation recapture adds another layer. These calculations take time to do correctly, and getting them wrong costs more than the extension ever would.

If your 2025 looked meaningfully different from your 2024, that alone is a reason to take the time rather than file something you are not confident in.

Talk to TaxMaster Before the Deadline

If April 15 is coming and your return is not ready, three things still need to happen before that date: estimate what you owe, pay as much of it as you can for both federal and New York State, and file both extensions. If you are not sure what you owe or how to handle any of it, this is not something to guess on.

TaxMaster works with individuals, families, and business owners across Queens and Long Island on exactly this every April.

Glendale Office: 718-326-0500

Melville Office: 631-673-0617

Or contact us online at taxmasterinc.com/contact.