Until this year, I added the Form 2210 penalty to the return if it was over $100, because I knew IRS would assess it. But this year, for most clients with a penalty of less than $250, I didn’t include it.  Instead, I just warned them that they might get a bill. I figured once Elon Musk got through IRS staffing with his chainsaw, there might not be enough people left to collect the Franklin-plus-change.

Well, the cutoff still is only $100. But there is good news for my clients who were just charged $117. One of the benefits of filing paper returns is that IRS doesn’t notice all the numbers on a 1040. The tax-exempt interest on Line 2a of their return was not picked up, lowering the amount of Social Security taxable, so clients are getting a $100 refund anyway even after the $117 penalty