Form 720-V: Payment Voucher Boxes, Mailing, and Deadlines

The Form 720-V payment voucher is the detachable stub at the bottom of Form 720 that you fill in and mail with a check or money order when paying your quarterly federal excise tax on paper. Its job is to tie your payment to the right taxpayer account and the right quarter so the IRS can post it without hunting through your return. You need it only if you’re paying by check or money order, and the return, voucher, and payment all go to a single address in Ogden, Utah, postmarked no later than the last day of the month after the quarter closes.

When You Actually Need the Voucher

Use Form 720-V only when you pay by paper check or money order. The IRS instructions say explicitly not to file the voucher if you pay through EFTPS, IRS Direct Pay, or a card payment.¹ The voucher is printed as a detachable slip at the bottom of Form 720 itself, so you don’t download it separately or request it. Finish the return, tear off the voucher, fill in the four boxes, and include it with your payment.²

Without the voucher, a clerk has to open your envelope, read your check, and match it to your return by hand. That’s where delays and misapplied payments start.

Filling In the Four Boxes

Each field on the voucher has to match what you put on the completed Form 720.

Box 1, Employer Identification Number. Enter your EIN. If you’re an individual without an EIN making a one-time filing, enter your Social Security number instead. You can apply for an EIN online at irs.gov/EIN or by mailing Form SS-4.²

Box 2, payment amount. Enter the dollar amount you’re paying. This figure comes from line 10 of your completed Form 720, and the check amount has to match this box exactly.²

Box 3, tax period. Darken the circle for the quarter you’re paying. One quarter per voucher.²

Box 4, name and address. Enter your business name and address exactly as they appear on your Form 720. Sole proprietors use their individual name.

The EIN is the mistake that costs the most. If the number doesn’t match an account on file, the IRS may apply your payment to the wrong entity or hold it in suspense while it sorts out where the money belongs. That kind of delay can trigger failure-to-pay penalties even though you sent the check on time.

Preparing the Check and Mailing the Package

Make the check or money order payable to “United States Treasury.” Not “IRS.” Not “Internal Revenue Service.” On the check itself, write your EIN (or SSN for a one-time filing), “Form 720,” and the tax period. Those details act as a backup if the voucher gets separated from the payment during processing.² Don’t send cash.

Put three things in the envelope: the completed Form 720, the detached 720-V voucher, and the check or money order. Do not staple or paper-clip the voucher or payment to the return or to each other.² Stack them loose.

Every Form 720 return goes to the same address regardless of where your business is located:³

Department of the Treasury
Internal Revenue Service
Ogden, UT 84201-0009

Under the timely-mailing rule, the postmark date on your envelope counts as the date of delivery for both the return and the payment.⁴ If you’re close to a deadline, send it certified so you have proof of the postmark. That receipt is your only defense if the IRS later says the payment arrived late.

2026 Filing Deadlines

Form 720 is due by the last day of the month following the end of each calendar quarter. When that date lands on a weekend or federal holiday, the deadline shifts to the next business day.⁵ The 2026 dates:

Q1 (January–March): April 30, 2026
Q2 (April–June): July 31, 2026
Q3 (July–September): November 2, 2026 (October 31 is a Saturday)
Q4 (October–December): February 1, 2027 (January 31 is a Sunday)

These dates apply to both filing the return and paying the tax, unless you’re required to make semi-monthly deposits during the quarter.

When the Voucher Isn’t Enough

If your net excise tax liability for taxes reported in Part I of Form 720 exceeds $2,500 for the quarter, you generally cannot wait until the filing deadline to pay. You have to make semi-monthly deposits through EFTPS during the quarter itself.¹ Each month splits into two deposit periods, the 1st through the 15th and the 16th through the end of the month, and each deposit is due by the 14th day after the period closes. That means paper check and voucher won’t cover the payment obligation for a filer over the threshold; the money has to move electronically.

Taxes listed in Part II of Form 720, including the truck and trailer retail tax, ship passenger tax, and manufacturer’s taxes, don’t require semi-monthly deposits at all. You pay those with the return.¹ The same exception applies to Part I taxes when your quarterly net liability stays at or below $2,500. That’s where people get caught: if last quarter’s liability was under the threshold and this quarter’s isn’t, the deposit rules kick in immediately, and the penalties for missed deposits are separate from the penalties for filing late.

If you’d rather skip the voucher entirely, IRS Direct Pay handles Form 720 balance-due payments from a checking or savings account without an EFTPS enrollment,⁶ and EFTPS itself is free but takes up to five business days to enroll because the PIN arrives by mail.⁷

What Happens If You’re Late

Two penalties run at the same time when you miss the deadline:

Failure to file: 5% of the unpaid tax for each month or partial month the return is late, up to 25%.⁸
Failure to pay: 0.5% of the unpaid tax for each month or partial month the payment is late, also capped at 25%.⁸

When both penalties apply for the same month, the failure-to-file penalty is reduced by the failure-to-pay amount, so the combined charge for the first five months is 5% per month rather than 5.5%.⁹ After five months, the failure-to-file penalty maxes out at 25%, but the failure-to-pay penalty keeps running until you pay or it hits its own 25% cap.

Interest on the unpaid balance compounds daily. The underpayment rate for individuals and most businesses is the federal short-term rate plus three percentage points, which puts the 2026 rate at 7% through March and 6% starting April 1.¹⁰¹¹ Interest runs from the original due date of the return, not from the date you eventually file.

1
Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 720
2
Internal Revenue Service. IRS Form 720 – Quarterly Federal Excise Tax Return
3
Internal Revenue Service. Where to File – Forms Beginning With the Number 7
4
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 U.S. Code 7502 – Timely Mailing Treated as Timely Filing and Paying
5
Internal Revenue Service. Publication 509 (2026), Tax Calendars
6
Internal Revenue Service. Types of Business Payments Available Through Direct Pay
7
Internal Revenue Service. EFTPS: The Electronic Federal Tax Payment System
8
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 6651 – Failure to File Tax Return or to Pay Tax
9
Internal Revenue Service. Failure to File Penalty
10
Internal Revenue Service. Interest Rates Remain the Same for the First Quarter of 2026
11
Internal Revenue Service. Internal Revenue Bulletin: 2026-8