As Tax Day 2012 arrives, The Post’s Maggie Fazeli Fard shares some good and bad news about the filing deadline:
Bad news first: Not all post offices will be staying open late on April 17 to accommodate procrastinators counting on making a mad dash to the post office at midnight.
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According to USPS, the majority of Americans now file their taxes electronically, making the extended hours an unnecessary expense for the agency, which is grappling with a budget shortfall.
This year’s April 17 deadline grants a two-day reprieve from the traditional filing deadline of April 15, which fell on Sunday this year.
The deadline was delayed one additional day because Monday is the 150th anniversary of D.C.’s emancipation, which is treated like a federal holiday, according to the Internal Revenue Service.
“It’s just this quirky little thing in the law,” IRS spokesman Eric Smith told NPR.
Find out which Washington area post office locations will stay open late here.
If you happen to be in a rush to file, make sure to take extra care on the roads. New research finds that traffic fatalities rise an average of 6 percent on Tax Day, comparable to the danger of driving on Super Bowl Sunday.
And now, the good news: Tax Day freebies. Dining In D.C. offers this list of Washington area restaurants, bars and companies making Tax Day a little easier to bear.
The Post’s Hayley Tsukayama offers some tips on how to file online for those who are cutting it close:
It’s a classic story: You got your W-2 forms way back in February, got your papers in order to file your taxes and then called it a day. Suddenly it’s mid-April and you realize you never took the last step — to file.
There’s some good news. For one, tax day wasn’t April 15 this year, it’s been moved to April 17. That’s thanks to some fortuitous calendar coincidences, as the traditional tax day fell on Sunday this year, followed by the D.C. holiday, Emancipation Day. If you haven’t prepared your taxes yet, however, this is no time to take a break.
Lucky for you, we live in an era in which technology has made paperwork a much less frustrating ordeal. There are a few tax apps that can help you wade through all those checkboxes and forms.
There's still time to e-file, which will eliminate panic over mailbox pickup deadlines and a potentially deadly rush to the post office. If your income is $57,000 or less, the IRS even has set up a way for you to file for free using a third-party tax preparation service to keep you from having to wade through the paperwork yourself. Qualifying filers can choose from 15 services, though each have their own limits on who is eligible for the free prep.
If you don’t meet those qualifications but don’t want to go it alone, there are several companies that are happy to help you for a fee online. One of the biggest, TurboTax, is good for more complicated returns and walks users through complications such as income earned from contract jobs or investments. The same is true of H&R Block, another popular online filing service. Fees for H&R Block start at $19.95 for federal taxes; TurboTax’s is free for federal, but state taxes cost $39.95 per state. If you have more complicated taxes, you can sign on to the company’s $49.95 Federal service. Both services also have some mobile apps to answer some of your tax questions.
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