First-time penalty abatement and the automatic exemption
Choose the tax year of the penalty, say whether the three years before it were clean, and enter the penalties charged. The result names the relief that fits and how much of the penalty, with its interest, would come off.
- Clean history needed
- 3 prior years
- Automatic exemption starts
- summer 2026, 2025 returns
- Penalties covered
- Late filing, late payment, deposit
- Interest on the tax
- Never removed
Relief that fits
First Time Abate, on request
Call the number on the notice or file Form 843; no document is needed for First Time Abate.
| Penalties that would go | $1,458 |
| Interest on them, removed with them | $102 |
| Interest on the tax itself | stays |
The tax and the interest on the tax are never abated by First Time Abate. Estimate, not tax advice.
Compiled by Radif Partners · How we calculate · rules and rates read on irs.gov · not tax advice, the IRS decides
First Time Abate is an administrative waiver of the failure to file, failure to pay and failure to deposit penalties for a person who filed the same type of return on time for the 3 prior years and had no penalty in those years, other than an estimated tax penalty or one later removed for reasonable cause. It is granted on request, by phone or in writing, with no documents. From summer 2026, the IRS is replacing it for 2025 returns and later with the Automatic Exemption from Penalty: the same clean history means the penalty is never assessed and nothing has to be asked. For a 2024 return filed 120 days late on $5,300 of unpaid tax, paid on October 20, 2026, first-time abatement would remove $1,458 of penalties and $131 of interest on them, $1,589 in all. The $5,300 of tax and $578 of interest on it stay due.
A clean history: what the IRS checks
The IRS page on First Time Abate and the automatic exemption sets three conditions for an individual. The same return type as the one with the penalty was filed on time for each of the 3 prior years. No penalty was assessed in those years, except the estimated tax penalty, or a penalty was assessed and later removed for reasonable cause or IRS error. Businesses have two more conditions on deposit penalties. Returns filed once or infrequently, the daily delinquency penalty and information reporting that depends on another filing are excluded.
The relief covers three penalties whatever their size: failure to file under section 6651(a)(1), failure to pay under sections 6651(a)(2) and (a)(3), and failure to deposit under section 6656. Accuracy-related penalties, such as the one a CP2000 can propose, are outside it.
What it takes off a 2024 return
A 2024 return was due April 15, 2025. Filed 120 days later with $5,300 unpaid, it drew $954 of late filing penalty for 4 months and, with the tax paid on October 20, 2026, $504 of late payment penalty for 19 months. Interest on those penalties adds $131. With a clean history, a call to the number on the notice can take all of that off.
| Line of the bill | Amount | After first-time abatement |
|---|---|---|
| Tax | $5,300 | $5,300 |
| Interest on the tax | $578 | $578 |
| Late filing penalty | $954 | $0 |
| Late payment penalty | $504 | $0 |
| Interest on the penalties | $131 | $0 |
| Total | $7,467 | $5,878 |
Your penalty year and amount
Relief that fits
First Time Abate, on request
| Penalties that would go | $1,650 |
| Interest on them, removed with them | $115 |
| Interest on the tax itself | stays |
The Automatic Exemption from Penalty, from summer 2026
For 2025 tax year returns and later, and for 2026 quarterly returns, the IRS applies the clean-history test itself when the original return finishes processing. If the test is met, the late filing, late payment or deposit penalty is not assessed, the late payment penalty does not keep accruing on the unpaid tax, and a letter explains that the relief was applied. No reply is needed. The tax, the interest and any other penalty remain due.
Take a 2025 return filed 50 days after April 15, 2026 with $4,150 unpaid, paid on October 20, 2026. Without relief, the penalties and their interest would come to $534. With a clean record, that amount is simply never charged, and the bill is the tax plus $143 of interest on it.
| First Time Abate | Automatic Exemption from Penalty | |
|---|---|---|
| Returns covered | 2025 and earlier years not considered for the exemption | 2025 tax year and later, 2026 quarters and later |
| How it is granted | On request | Automatically |
| Taxpayer action | Call or write | None |
| Penalty on the account | Assessed, then removed | Never assessed |
| Late payment penalty | May keep accruing until the tax is paid | Does not accrue |
How to ask for first-time abatement
For years before the exemption, the request is yours to make. The IRS lists two routes: a call to the toll-free number in the top right corner of the notice, or a written statement or Form 843 sent to the address in the form instructions. The request does not have to name First Time Abate, and no supporting document is needed; the IRS reads the account history. The reasonable cause page adds that when a caller asks for reasonable cause but qualifies for first-time abatement, the IRS applies first-time abatement. If the exemption should have applied to a 2025 return and a notice shows the penalty anyway, the IRS asks you to contact it.
Timing a request against an open balance
The IRS comparison table notes that under First Time Abate the late payment penalty may continue to accrue until the tax is fully paid. A request made while part of the tax is still open deals with the penalty charged up to that point, and each later month adds to the account again until the balance is cleared. That is why the example above is counted to the day the tax is paid in full, and why the calculator asks how many months have passed since the penalties were charged: it uses that period to estimate the interest the penalties have drawn, which comes off with them. For someone paying through a plan, the penalty figure on the final notice is therefore the complete one.
What it never removes
The tax is owed in every case. Interest on the tax stays too: the IRS interest page states that interest is not reduced for reasonable cause or as first-time relief. What does disappear is the interest that was charged on the removed penalties, which the IRS reduces automatically. When the history is not clean, the remaining path is reasonable cause relief, which needs facts and usually documents. Approval of either kind is the IRS's decision; this page computes the stakes, not the outcome.