I
119THCONGRESS
1
STSESSION H. R. 990
To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to allow individuals to avoid
a penalty for failure to pay income tax by timely paying 125 percent
of the income tax liability for the prior year.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
FEBRUARY5, 2025
Ms. C
HU(for herself and Mr. CAREY) introduced the following bill; which was
referred to the Committee on Ways and Means
A BILL
To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to allow indi-
viduals to avoid a penalty for failure to pay income
tax by timely paying 125 percent of the income tax
liability for the prior year.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-1
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 2
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 3
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Simplify Automatic 4
Filing Extensions Act’’ or the ‘‘SAFE Act’’. 5
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SEC. 2. NO PENALTY FOR FAILURE TO PAY INCOME TAX 1
FOR INDIVIDUALS WHO TIMELY PAY 125 PER-2
CENT OF INCOME TAX LIABILITY FOR PRIOR 3
YEAR. 4
(a) I
NGENERAL.—Section 6651(c) of the Internal 5
Revenue Code of 1986 is amended by adding at the end 6
the following new paragraph: 7
‘‘(3) N
O PENALTY FOR FAILURE TO PAY IN -8
COME TAX FOR INDIVIDUALS WHO TIMELY PAY 125 9
PERCENT OF INCOME TAX LIABILITY FOR PRIOR 10
YEAR.— 11
‘‘(A) I
N GENERAL.—Subsection (a)(2) 12
shall not apply with respect to an income tax 13
return of an individual if such individual pays, 14
on or before the date prescribed for the pay-15
ment of the tax with respect to which such re-16
turn relates (determined with regard to any ex-17
tension of time for payment), 125 percent of 18
the amount of tax required to be shown on the 19
income tax return of such individual for the im-20
mediately preceding taxable year. 21
‘‘(B) F
AILURE TO FILE; SHORT TAXABLE 22
YEARS.—Subparagraph (A) shall not apply— 23
‘‘(i) if the individual does not file an 24
income tax return for the taxable year de-25
scribed in subparagraph (A) on or before 26
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the date prescribed therefor (determined 1
with regard to any extension of time for 2
filing), 3
‘‘(ii) if the individual did not file an 4
income tax return for the immediately pre-5
ceding taxable year referred to in subpara-6
graph (A), or 7
‘‘(iii) if the immediately preceding 8
taxable year referred to in subparagraph 9
(A) was less than 12 months. 10
‘‘(C) J
OINT RETURNS.—In the case of a 11
joint return, if the taxpayer did not file a joint 12
return for the immediately preceding taxable 13
year referred to in subparagraph (A), the 14
amounts required to be shown on the income 15
tax returns of both spouses for such imme-16
diately preceding taxable year shall be taken 17
into account under subparagraph (A). Except 18
as otherwise provided by the Secretary, if the 19
individual does not file a joint return for the 20
taxable year to which subparagraph (A) applies 21
and filed a joint return for the immediately pre-22
ceding taxable year, the entire amount of tax 23
required to be shown on such joint return shall 24
be taken into account under subparagraph (A). 25
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‘‘(D) EXCEPTION NOT APPLICABLE UN -1
LESS ADDITIONAL PAYMENTS ARE MADE WITH 2
TIMELY FILED RETURN .—Subparagraph (A) 3
shall not apply with respect to any period be-4
ginning after the earlier of— 5
‘‘(i) the date prescribed for filing the 6
income tax return for the taxable year (in-7
cluding extensions thereof), or 8
‘‘(ii) the date on which such return 9
was filed.’’. 10
(b) C
ONFORMINGAMENDMENT.—The heading of sec-11
tion 6651(c) of such Code is amended by striking ‘‘R
ULE’’ 12
and inserting ‘‘R
ULES’’. 13
(c) E
FFECTIVEDATE.—The amendments made by 14
this section shall apply to taxable years beginning after 15
December 31, 2024. 16
Æ
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