If you can’t file your income tax return by the due date, you can file your return up to six months late with a valid extension.
A valid extension means you can avoid a penalty for filing late. There aren’t any extensions allowing you to pay late. You’ll owe interest on any payments made after the original due date. You’ll also owe penalties if you pay after the extended due date (six months after the original due date).
Ensuring you have a valid extension
We have two worksheets to help you make sure you have a valid extension to file late:
- Form 51 is for individual income tax
- Form 41ES is for business income tax
After you finish the worksheet, do one of the following:
- If you need to make a payment, you can mail the form at the bottom of the worksheet with your check. Or, you can use our free, secure QuickPay service online to authorize a payment from your bank account.
- If you don’t need to make a payment, you don’t have to send us Form 51 or Form 41ES. Just be sure to file your income tax return by the extended due date.
What to do if you don’t have a valid extension
If it’s after the original due date and you don’t have a valid extension:
- File your income tax return as soon as possible.
- Pay as much as you can now. (Pay the entire amount due if possible.) See our E-Pay page for options.
These steps can greatly reduce the amount of interest and penalties you owe.
More information about interest and penalty
You’ll owe interest and penalties on all overdue tax payments. Idaho law requires us to charge interest, and we can’t waive it.
Interest rates change each year. See the interest rates chart.
Penalties can vary from 0.5% per month to a maximum of 50% of the tax due. See the Penalties and Interest guide for the different kinds of penalties and how they’re calculated.
You can use our Penalty and Interest Estimator to calculate what you could owe.