Why is the second quarter tax deadline on June 15?

July 10, 2015 12:46 PM

Why is the second quarter tax deadline on June 15?

All the other quarterly deadlines, January 15, April 15, October 15, come just after the end of the previous calendar quarter.

Since a lot of people are paid quarterly or close their books quarterly, then July 15 would be a good time for a tax deadline, just after the June 30 closing. In any case, this one deadline doesn't follow the pattern of the other three.

So why is the deadline for the second quarter on June 15? If you know, please tell me the historical reason this date was chosen.

posted by JimN2TAW to Work & Money (8 answers total)

All my quarterly tax bills (car, sewer, etc) do say July 15th.
posted by fancyoats at 12:58 PM on July 10, 2015

Best answer: Are you talking about Federal estimated tax payments in the US?
The second quarter is only April and May according to this blog post. The third is June-August and the fourth is Sept - Dec.
posted by soelo at 1:03 PM on July 10, 2015 [1 favorite]

Best answer: I'm not sure, but be careful -- it's September 15, not October 15, for federal estimated taxes.
posted by ktkt at 1:05 PM on July 10, 2015

Best answer: If you haven't already, maybe take a look at this page and the table on this page.

Seems that the second quarter tax deadline is on June 15, not July 15, because it's not for a full quarter - only April 1 through May 31, not through June 30 as is the case in other "quarterly" systems.

I don't know the history but I'm very intrigued!

Fancyoats, those are utilities, not taxes. Probably not the same?
posted by schroedingersgirl at 1:06 PM on July 10, 2015 [1 favorite]

I assumed that it was because they wanted to get your hands on their money sooner. That they couldn't change the April date (since that went with filing last year's taxes) or the January date (since you need the whole year) but the government would rather have some of your money in their hands sooner rather than later. I think this because California has taken it a step further - you have to pay in 30% of your estimated taxes by April 15, another 40% by June 15, 0% in September and 30% in January. Crazy, huh?
posted by metahawk at 2:09 PM on July 10, 2015

Response by poster: ktkt - Thanks, you're right. The estimated deadline is September 15.

October 15 is the annual deadline with an extension - irrelevant.

The question becomes - why the skewed quarterly setup for federal and state income taxes. The second "quarter" is two months, the fourth "quarter" is four months. Is there a historical reason, or justification?
posted by JimN2TAW at 2:24 PM on July 10, 2015

I'm not aware of any justification, but note that these estimated taxes are considered to be quarterly. That means that your June 15th and September 15th payments are expected to be the same amount as your January 15th and April 15th estimated payments. And from personal experience, I can tell you that they make it extraordinarily difficult to convince them that unequal estimated payments are justified, even when your income changed dramatically throughout the year.
posted by DrGail at 2:44 PM on July 10, 2015

Best answer: Doesn't the fiscal year for most US government entities start in July? Perhaps the estimated payments for Q2 were moved up at some point as one of those wonderful budgeting tricks so someone could say a budget balanced or was improved.
posted by jimw at 5:20 PM on July 10, 2015