File Now, Pay Taxes Later

— -- If you want to file early, but you owe Uncle Sam this year and are still catching up on your holiday bills, you can now file electronically and pay your taxes later.

According to Don Roberts of the Internal Revenue Service, "it's very easy to include and authorization for a direct debit of either your checking or savings account so that there will be no fees involved at all. The electronic funds withdrawal will simply occur on the date that you designate, which, not surprisingly, is often on April 15."

If you owe a lot of money and won't have it by April 15, you can always put it on your credit card.

But you'll end up paying twice.

"There is a convenience fee that's charged by the processors for the use of the credit card. And secondly, the credit card charge occurs at the time the charge is authorized," Roberts said.

So if you authorize the charge in February, it will most likely show up on your credit card bill long before April 15.

Click here for interactive tax explainers and calculators