Tax season is stressful enough, but avoidable mistakes can turn a routine filing into an expensive headache.

With Tax Day just 10 days away, even small errors can mean the difference between a smooth refund and frustrating delays. In some cases, they can even trigger IRS notices or unexpected penalties.

Here are five common filing missteps to watch out for and how to avoid them:

1. Choosing the wrong filing status

Your filing status is one of the most important choices on your tax return because it helps determine your tax rate, your standard deduction and which credits you may be eligible to claim. Pick the wrong one, and you could end up paying more than you owe, getting a smaller refund or triggering delays if the IRS flags the return for review.

For many taxpayers, the confusion comes from life changes that happened during the year, like getting married or divorced, having a child, moving in with a partner, supporting an aging parent or sharing custody. Even if your situation feels straightforward, the IRS rules can be less intuitive, especially for taxpayers who aren’t sure whether they qualify as “head of household” or whether they can still file as “qualifying surviving spouse” after a spouse has died.

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Head of household, in particular, can be costly to get wrong. It typically comes with a larger standard deduction and more favorable tax brackets than filing as single – but it has strict requirements tied to paying more than half the cost of keeping up a home and having a qualifying dependent. If you don’t meet the rules and claim it anyway, you may have to pay back tax benefits later, plus penalties and interest.

When in doubt, the IRS has an online filing-status tool, and many tax software programs will walk you through the questions to help you choose the right category.

2. Leaving credits on the table

One of the biggest and most expensive tax-season mistakes is failing to claim every credit or deduction you qualify for. That can mean a smaller refund or a higher bill.

“I think the top mistake people make is not fully understanding or taking the time to really research what are all the different deductions and the ways that you can put a little bit of extra money in your pocket that are available to you,” said Bill Sweeney, senior vice president of government affairs at AARP.

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Sweeney also warned taxpayers not to rely on last year’s return as a blueprint for filing because of recent changes to the tax code from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. 

“This would be a good year given that there are these changes to the tax code, to make sure not to assume that what you did last year will convey over to this year. Really take a fresh look at your tax situation and see if there’s money that you’re leaving on the table,” he said.

3. Missing key deadlines

An extension can buy you time to file your paperwork, but it doesn’t give you extra time to pay. For most taxpayers, the IRS deadline to pay what you owe is April 15, 2026 – even if you request an extension to file later.

“Remember that even if you claim an extension, the money is owed on April 15,” said Mike Faulkender, co-chair of American Prosperity at the America First Policy Institute.

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Faulkender, a former Treasury official and IRS commissioner, said taxpayers who need more time should still estimate their bill and pay by the filing deadline to help avoid added costs.

“You have to actually send in a check or have the payment deducted from your account by the filing deadline,” he said.

If you can’t pay in full by April 15, pay what you can to help limit penalties and interest on top of your tax bill.

4. Entering bank account details incorrectly

If you choose direct deposit for your refund, the IRS relies on the routing and account numbers you provide. One wrong digit can lead to delays. 

If you pay what you owe by direct debit, incorrect banking details can also lead to a rejected payment and potentially result in penalties and interest.

5. Filing before all your tax forms arrive

Timing matters when it comes to filing your taxes. Submitting your return before you’ve received all your key paperwork, like W-2s or 1099s, can lead to errors, missing income or a return you have to amend later.

Faulkender said there’s a simple way to double-check what’s been reported under your name before you file. 

“One of the things that I learned last year when I was IRS commissioner, was that if you create an account on irs.gov, you can see everything that’s been filed under your tax ID,” he said. 

“We’re supposed to receive all of our W-2s and our 1099 forms in the mail in January and February. But if you’re missing one, or you misplaced it rather than requesting it again, you can actually go and see what was filed under your taxpayer identification number if you create an account on IRS.gov.” 

Filing late can also cost you extra money, especially if you owe. The goal is to wait until you have what you need, then file as soon as you’re ready.

President Donald Trump says the war with Iran is “nearing completion,” but a looming deadline could determine whether the conflict is actually ending — or about to escalate.

“We are going to finish the job, and we’re going to finish it very fast. We’re getting very close,” Trump said Wednesday night, adding that U.S. forces will “hit them extremely hard over the next two to three weeks” and “bring them back to the Stone Ages, where they belong.”

As the war enters what analysts describe as its final phase, the administration is signaling a shift from broad military gains to a narrower endgame — raising questions about what “finishing the job” actually means militarily and politically.

Trump gave Iran until Tuesday to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, warning that failure to comply could trigger sweeping strikes on the country’s energy infrastructure.

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“If no deal is made … we are going to hit each and every one of their electric-generating plants, very hard and probably simultaneously,” he said.

“With a little more time, we can easily OPEN THE HORMUZ STRAIT, TAKE THE OIL, & MAKE A FORTUNE. IT WOULD BE A ‘GUSHER’ FOR THE WORLD???” he said on Truth Social Friday. 

The U.S. has already begun expanding its target set to include major infrastructure. This week, American strikes hit one of Iran’s largest bridges — a critical transportation artery — signaling that mixed-use infrastructure supporting military logistics is now firmly on the table.

“The biggest bridge in Iran comes tumbling down, never to be used again — Much more to follow!” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “IT IS TIME FOR IRAN TO MAKE A DEAL BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE.”

That raises a central question heading into the final weeks: what, exactly, would “finishing the job” look like?

Military analysts say it is unlikely to be a single decisive strike. Instead, the endgame may unfold as a series of escalating options — from intensified attacks on Iran’s remaining missile and drone network, to broader strikes on infrastructure designed to force the regime into a deal, or a longer-term strategy of containing Iran’s capabilities from above.

“We will continue to see very aggressive attrition of offensive and defensive targets, as well as infrastructure targets,” said RP Newman, a retired Marine ground combat veteran and counterterrorism consultant.

Some critics doubt that Trump has a clear exit strategy. 

Trump’s public address Wednesday “was a summary, somewhat in chronological order, of things he’s already said on social media for the last month — and that, in and of itself, reveals that he doesn’t have a plan,” said Trita Parsi, a geopolitical analyst with the Quincy Institute, on X. “I think he wants to get out of this war. I just don’t think he knows how.”

Rather than winding down, Newman said, the U.S. may still be expanding its options. “That gives the President more options, and it gives the enemy an additional problem set to ponder.”

He also cautioned that Iran retains significant capability despite weeks of strikes.

“Iran likely has more missiles and drones remaining in their inventory than some people in organizations think or are claiming,” Newman said.

Recent U.S. intelligence assessments cited by CNN suggest that roughly half of Iran’s missile launchers remain intact and thousands of drones are still in its arsenal.

Behnam Taleblu, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said the likely objective now is to “degrade and defang the regime of its long-range strike capabilities and prevent it from being able to pose a threat abroad.”

That effort, he said, would focus not just on weapons, but on the systems that sustain them.

“The regime’s bases that house these missiles and drones need to be targeted and collapsed … as well as the domestic supply chain and defense industrial base that supports these projectiles,” Taleblu said.

At the same time, the administration appears to be signaling limits to how far it will go.

Trump has suggested the U.S. may rely on continuous surveillance of Iran’s nuclear sites rather than launching new strikes or sending in ground forces to seize enriched uranium — a strategy Taleblu described as “watching them like a hawk.”

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The influx of thousands of new troops from Marine Expeditionary Units and the 82nd Airborne Division in recent weeks has fueled speculation that the U.S. may be eyeing a ground operation to seize Kharg Island or recover Iran’s nuclear stockpile — estimated at more than 400 kilograms of highly enriched uranium — believed to be entombed deep within the Isfahan tunnel complex since the U.S. first collapsed its entrances in June 2025.

That approach could allow Washington to step back militarily while maintaining pressure, but it risks leaving key elements of Iran’s nuclear program intact.

“Keeping this material relatively accessible for the regime will mean that this will be a problem that the U.S. will be coming back to,” Taleblu said.

Trump also has signaled that, even as the U.S. pressures Iran to reopen the Strait in the short term, it may not pay a role in securing global energy flows, shifting more responsibility to allies.

“To those countries that can’t get fuel… go to the Strait and just take it. Protect it. Use it for yourselves,” he said.

Still, whether the war can truly be “finished” within Trump’s timeline remains uncertain.

Iran is believed to retain portions of its missile and drone arsenal, and analysts warn that even a degraded regime could continue to pose a threat — particularly if key capabilities survive the current campaign.

What happens next may depend on whether the pressure applied in the coming days — especially ahead of the April 6 deadline — is enough to force an outcome.

President Donald Trump has endorsed Steve Hilton in the California gubernatorial race.

“I have known and respected Steve Hilton, who is running for Governor of California, for many years. He is a truly fine man, one who has watched as this once great State has gone to Hell,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post about Hilton, a former Fox News host, on Monday.

“Gavin Newscum and the Democrats have done an absolutely horrendous job. People are fleeing, crime is increasing, and Taxes are the highest of any State in the Country, maybe the World. Steve can turn it around, before it is too late, and, as President, I will help him to do so! With Federal help, and a Great Governor, like Steve Hilton, California can be better than ever before! Steve Hilton has my COMPLETE & TOTAL ENDORSEMENT. He will be a GREAT Governor and, importantly, WILL NEVER LET YOU DOWN!!!” the president declared in the post.

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Fox News Digital reached out to Hilton’s campaign and to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office on Monday.

Hilton, a Republican, is running in a crowded jungle primary that includes candidates from both sides of the political aisle. 

The top two candidates in the June 2, 2026, primary will advance to the general election.

Some of the Democratic candidates seeking the governorship include Biden-era Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becera, Rep. Eric Swalwell and former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. 

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Trump’s full-throated endorsement of Hilton may hurt Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, who is one of the other Republicans running for the role. 

Hilton and Bianco had been the top two contenders in some public opinion polls, giving Republicans hope that no Democrat would finish in the primary’s top two positions.

That scenario may be less likely now, as Hilton’s support is likely to rise and Bianco’s drop in light of the president’s endorsement. 

“Trump kills any GOP hopes of an R vs R runoff in the California governor’s race,” Rob Pyers of California Target Book wrote in a post on X regarding the president’s endorsement of Hilton. 

“Trump’s endorsement of Steve Hilton likely frees up tens of millions of dollars for Democratic groups who would have otherwise had to spend heavily to elevate one of the two leading GOP gubernatorial candidates to avoid a Democratic lockout,” Pyers wrote in another post.

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Hilton became a U.S. citizen in 2021, and renounced his U.K. citizenship in 2025, he noted during an interview with GB News.

A party-line tactic to ram legislation through Congress and bypass the Senate filibuster has become a dumping ground for Republicans’ legislative priorities throughout the year.

Now, as Democrats refuse to fund immigration operations, Republicans are once again readying a budget reconciliation package. The hard part will be getting enough of the GOP on the same page to craft a bill that can pass and survive the strict rules underpinning the process.

Republicans used the same process to pass President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” last year. It’s a time-consuming, labor-intensive legislative maneuver that nearly blew up and could fail unless both the Senate and House align on what exactly they want to include.

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Trump officially backed using reconciliation again this week as a way to skirt Democrats’ refusal to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP), as Congress inches closer to ending the ongoing Department of Homeland Security (DHS) shutdown.

Trump demanded that Republicans get the bill on his desk by June 1.

“We are going to work as fast and as focused as possible to replenish funding for our Border and ICE agents, and the Radical Left Democrats won’t be able to stop us,” Trump said on Truth Social.

Still, Republicans have viewed reconciliation as a vehicle to tackle fraud, affordability, Trump’s tariff authorities, additional tax provisions, healthcare, funding for the Iran war, supplemental agriculture spending and election integrity measures in the months since passing the “big, beautiful bill.”

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Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., has warned that if reconciliation is going to work — especially given the limited timeframe lawmakers have to start and finish the process — Republicans need to “keep our expectations realistic.”

“Our theory of the case behind all this was to keep that thing as narrow and focused as possible, and that maximizes the speed at which we can do it and the support for it,” Thune said.

“There will probably be some attempts to add things,” he continued. “There are things out there that, obviously, many of us are interested in. But on a reconciliation vehicle like this — which we need to move with haste, as the president has pointed out — it’s probably not a likely magnet for all these other issues.”

Senate Budget Committee Chair Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told voters at an event this week in South Carolina that he is eyeing two new reconciliation packages, which could ease concerns about cramming all the GOP’s priorities into one massive bill.

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“We want to do it quick — ICE, Border Patrol — fund it as much as you can, multi-year,” Graham said. “Then there’s another one coming. I just made news. There’s another one coming in the fall, and that’s going to be about going after fraud.”

House Republicans spent their recent policy retreat earlier this year pushing a so-called “reconciliation 2.0,” gearing up to load the package with several provisions that could drain time and struggle to earn support in the Senate — where strict guidelines could kill proposals entirely if they don’t comply with the rules.

The Republican Study Committee (RSC), which has long called for a second reconciliation bill, also wants to add proposals addressing affordability concerns.

“We support pursuing funding for military readiness and Homeland Security through this legislative process, while simultaneously codifying the president’s agenda to deliver lower costs for working families,” the RSC Steering Committee said in a statement to Fox News Digital.

Some Republicans are also pushing to include the latest policy fight: the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act. The voter ID and citizenship verification legislation has no chance of passing the Senate given unified Democratic opposition.

It’s also unlikely to survive the Senate’s reconciliation rules, which allow only provisions that directly impact spending.

“I think we have to set our sights a little bit lower on this reconciliation bill,” Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., told Fox News Digital. “It’s got to be targeted to fund ICE for 10 years — I think that’s the number one thing for us. If we can nibble at the edges of the SAVE Act, that would be great, but the parliamentarian is not going to let us do the SAVE Act. That’s just an impossibility.”

Some of the loudest proponents of the bill in the House GOP acknowledge that adding the SAVE Act to reconciliation would be a challenge — largely because they would prefer to keep the bill intact and push it through the Senate.

“Look, it’s time for them to do a walk-and-talk and filibuster, and let’s make this thing happen,” Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., said. “The American people are watching — piecing it together just to try to get a piece.”

The ballot box battle for the House majority resumes this week.

Special U.S. House contests in Georgia and New Jersey and a Virginia referendum that is the latest face-off between President Donald Trump and Republicans and Democrats in the high-stakes congressional redistricting wars — with the House majority on the line — will all draw national attention this month.

Also on tap in April: a state Supreme Court election in battleground Wisconsin.

The consequential elections come as the 2026 primary calendar, which kicked off in March, takes a break this month before returning with a vengeance in May.

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Here’s a closer look at the four ballot box showdowns.

April 7 — GA-14 special election

Trump-backed Republican House candidate Clay Fuller faces off with Democratic candidate Shawn Harris to fill a vacant congressional district in solidly red northwest Georgia that was once held by MAGA firebrand Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Harris, a retired brigadier general and cattle farmer, and Fuller, a local prosecutor and Air National Guard member, were the top two finishers in a field of 17 candidates, including 12 Republicans, in the early March special election. With no candidate topping 50%, Harris and Fuller advanced to a runoff.

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The special election comes as Republicans cling to a razor-thin 218–214 majority in the House. That means the GOP cannot afford any surprises or allow Democrats to pull an upset in a district that extends from Atlanta’s northwest exurbs to Georgia’s northwestern border with Alabama and northern border with Tennessee, which Trump carried by 37 points in his 2024 presidential victory.

Fuller, who is expected to consolidate the Republican vote that was divided in the first round, is considered the clear frontrunner in the race. But if Harris holds Fuller’s margin to the mid-teens or less, national Democrats will argue the election is the latest in the 14 months since Trump returned to the White House in which they’ve overperformed.

The congressional seat was left vacant when Greene stepped down at the beginning of January. Greene quit Congress with a year left in her term, after a very public falling out with Trump mostly over her push to release the Jeffrey Epstein files.

April 7 — Wisconsin Supreme Court election

While officially a non-partisan contest, state Supreme Court elections in the Midwestern battleground have become extremely partisan in recent years.

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With the court’s majority on the line in last year’s contests, outside money poured in and out-of-state door knockers blanketed Wisconsin. One of the biggest spenders was Trump ally Elon Musk, who headlined a rally days before the election and donned a cheesehead hat worn by fans of the Green Bay Packers.

Democrats won that election by a larger-than-expected margin and currently hold a 4-3 majority on Wisconsin’s highest court.

With a conservative justice retiring, the majority isn’t at stake in this year’s election, although liberals with a win could expand their majority to 5-2.

But if the conservative candidate wins, or keeps it close, the GOP may claim a moral victory.

April 16 — NJ-11 special election

Republican Joe Hathaway, a local mayor, is hoping to pull off an upset in the special election to fill the congressional seat left vacant after now-Gov. Mikie Sherrill stepped down after winning last November’s gubernatorial election.

Hathaway, who was unopposed in February’s primary, faces off in the election against Democrat Analilia Mejia, a progressive organizer backed by left-wing champions Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Mejia pulled off an upset, narrowly edging out front-runner former Rep. Tom Malinowski in a field of 11 candidates. The face-off was one of the latest between progressives and more mainstream Democrats.

The 11th Congressional District in northern New Jersey‘s New York City suburbs was once the kind of seat where Republicans excelled at the ballot box. Hathaway, who has pointed out his differences with Trump, is the type of Republican who could attract crossover voters.

Add in that Mejia may be too far to the left for some voters in the district, and there’s a chance for some intrigue on Election Day.

April 21 — Virginia redistricting referendum

Voters in Virginia are casting ballots on a Democrat-pushed referendum that would give the competitive state up to four more left-leaning U.S. House districts in time for this year’s midterm elections.

That could result in a 10-1 advantage for Democrats in the state’s U.S. House delegation, up from their current 6-5 edge. 

With two weeks until Election Day, early voting is surging, according to officials, with turnout outpacing early voting from last autumn’s general election. Despite being vastly outraised by Democrats, Republicans see positive signs in early turnout.

Republicans call the Democrats’ redistricting effort an “unconstitutional power grab.” Democrats counter that it’s a necessary step to balance out partisan gerrymandering already implemented in other states by the GOP.

Virginia is the latest redistricting battleground, with Florida on deck, to alter congressional maps ahead of November’s elections.

Republicans are defending their razor-thin House majority in the midterms, and Democrats need a net gain of just three seats to win back control of the chamber. That means the redistricting efforts in Virginia and other states may very well decide which party controls the House next year.