(Update) Chase & Amex Promote Paying Taxes With A Credit Card

Update 9/9/23: Just adding this Reddit report from a CFPB response confirming that tax payments with Amex do count toward rewards AND count toward minimum spend requirements.

Update 5/12/23: Reddit use refarch88 found that Amex promotes earning rewards with IRS payments as well in their emails:

Earn rewards by putting IRS expenses on your Card using secure payment processors, like payUSAtax, Pay1040, and ACI Payments.

Original Post 12/4/22:

Reader Robert bumped into an interesting page from Chase where they work through the pros and cons of paying your federal or state taxes with a credit card. Including in the pros: convenience, more time to pay, and to help meet a signup bonus spend requirement.

We wrote that while American Express allows tax payments their human reps sometimes don’t like counting it for purposes of meeting minimum spend requirements. And so it’s good to see Chase officially recommend it. Tax payments are one of the most legitimate expenses one can have.

One of the cons listed is that a cashback card earning 2% may have all the earnings cancelled out by the card processing fee which is true. The lowest rate available is 1.87% which barely makes it worthwhile on a 2% card. But it can still make sense for signup bonus requirements or for a spend offer or to meet a status spend requirement or for someone who highly values the points of a particular currency.
    Chuck
  • On September 10, 2023, 12:00
Tags: chasetaxes

View Comments (110)

  • Is the 9/9/23 update in the post the latest word on whether Amex counts taxes towards the SUB? There are comments here past that date where Amex did not count the tax payment it seems.

    I am thinking of signing up for the 175,000 point Amex platinum offer and paying taxes tomorrow using the instant card number. There's some risk as the $695 annual fee isn't waived, so I'm researching whether a tax payment with the instant card number will count.

  • Just a question. If I overpay my taxes for 2024Q1 (say I pay them this month, January), would I get my refund for overpayment in 2024Q2, or would I need to wait for the following year's tax deadline to receive my refund?

    • Ha, I came here to ask the exact same question

      I should be getting a small refund based on my withholding. Would the amount I overpaid last year just be tacked onto the refund I'm already getting, do you know?

    • If you overpay for tax year 2024, you get it back after filing, which would be in 2025...

      Overpay for tax year 2023.

  • Anyone have update on paying federal income tax and it counts for earning American Express SUB sign up bonus for payment?

    • I dont know about federal income tax but CA state tax & property tax counted towards my Amex biz gold SUB

  • Just as a data point that Amex declined my Business Platinum SUB (multiple) times from my payUSAtax payment from back in June. They kept opening and closing the case. Finally called in instead of using the chat and spoke to an agent who put me on hold for an hour and said they reopened the case. Later that night the points posted. The charge to payUSAtax was a flat amount, not sure if that contributed to it not counting, but it seems it is YMMV if you will run into this. Sounds like most get the points one way or another, but it may involve a lot of work.

  • Is the IRS still taking awhile to refund overpayments on 1040-ES? When I overpaid on my regular 1040 for 2022 it was pretty quick but I'm weary of doing the 1040-ES due to DPs of delayed refunds.

    • It seemed to be the opposite for most of the data points I saw; 1040-ES was less likely to have delays than other types of payments. But I think delays are less common now than they were a couple years ago.

      My refund for 2022 was delayed somewhat (took 7 weeks) because the IRS sent me a letter saying they wanted to verify my identity; I had to create an ID.me account and enter some info from my tax return.

        • I'm not sure about the online versions. I use the desktop version of TurboTax, and it has an easy way to report 1040-ES payments (and Form 4868 extension payments). I vaguely remember people complaining about some online software not having a way to report something, but that might've been for 4868 extension payments, not 1040-ES.

    • Because then they'd be accused of saddling people with high interest debt to pay their taxes, all for the sake of some minor rewards

      Usual reasons CC attacked anyway

  • I just means that you earn points. You may not be able to use them towards the welcome bonus, which is like points+ (at least for Amex, but the reddit post may prove me wrong).

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