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Plastiq, the online bill pay service that charges your credit card and then sends out checks on your behalf, has a new tax payment promotion where their fees are just 1.75% for tax payments made with a MasterCard.
The next lowest fee for tax payments is 1.87% from sites like Pay1040.com.
Plastiq supports several federal tax types:
And they support several state taxes as well, which I expect vary by state. For instance, they do not support any in Texas which has no state income tax. But in my former home state of Virginia they list:
The Plastiq 1.75% promo for tax payments with a MasterCard runds through April 18 at 5 p.m. Pacific time.
I set up a few figure amount in payments when they were running a 1.5% promotion via MasterCard. I’ve asked Plastiq about the timeliness of sending out tax payments, and which ones are sent electronically and will update this point. Until then I wouldn’t likely send payments due on April 15 on that day. But for those thinking about their taxes in advance this could be a very attractive option.
Anyone know if you can property taxes as well? I live in Washington. I checked the website out but couldn’t find a definitive answer.
Thanks! Scott
just a word of warning, they are not too reliable.
Also, when I tried to use my Chase UA Club card (I have a mastercard version since it used to be a Presidential Plus Continental card) for 1.5 miles per dollar, it got declined. Chase asked me if Plastiq was a gambling company. They would not allow the transaction when I called Chase. So, it did not work for me. (this was when the rate was 1.5%)
good luck!
What about amex? We have to meet minimums on Starwood
I’ve used my SPG card a few times with them, works fine. I won’t be taking advantage of the taxes with MC I just got the 150,000 bonus AE platinum card and need to put the spend on that. Plus unless you allow plenty of time with Plastiq, I don’t think I would chance it (based on experience).
Caution: Plastiq is not listed on the IRS Pay Your Taxes by Debit or Credit Card page:
https://www.irs.gov/uac/Pay-Taxes-by-Credit-or-Debit-Card
Mathematically, how is this profitable?
If you use a miles-earning card: For a tax-bill of $3k you’ll pay $52.50 in fees to Plastic. You’ll earn 3k miles, which is less than 1/8 of the miles needed for a round-trip flight. So you need to do this 9 years in-a-row to earn a flight. $52 fees x 9 yrs = $472 you’d pay in Plastic fees. Good grief, Plastiq won’t even exist in 9 years… just BUY your flight today on your cc.
If you use Citi Double card: You’ll pay 1.75% in fees, and earn 2% from Citi. So you’ll profit 0.25%. For a tax-bill of $3k, your profit is $7.50. Too small a profit to do anything with other than the McDonalds drive-thru.
And you CERTAINLY can’t scale this deal!
@Lindy: depends on the size of your tax bill. I owe the feds $20k+ this year. Basically, it’s a cheap way for me to buy some miles at 1.75 cents a pop.
I have been trying to figure this out as well. I have a 30k tax bill i need to pay in the next few days. chase? amex? Delta Reserve? AA? im thinking chase. its 1.78% for me so the fees are 548.00 for the total tax bill
FYI I will pay it off immediately