Tomorrow is that special day when we render unto Caesar, and more of us than ever are doing it digitally, according to Internal Revenue Service data released yesterday.
Taxpayers filed nearly 56 million returns electronically as of April 8, an 8 percent increase over 2004 figures. That translates to nearly two-thirds of all tax returns, the IRS said. Not only that, Uncle Sam's bean counters expect that this year will mark the first time that more than half of individual tax returns will be filed online. A lot of that is due to the Free File software, which the IRS said accepted more than 4 million tax returns as of April 6, an almost 45 percent increase over the number filed last year.
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That got me to thinking about whether this signals the gradual fadeout of one of April 15's most hallowed rituals: the long Bataan Death March better known as the wait in line at the Post Office. So far, it seems like that's the case. USPS spokeswoman Joanne Veto said the service predicts that 10 percent fewer people will wait at Post Office branches this year compared to last year.
The IRS is already citing this as a big benefit to e-filing. "One of the real clear impacts of electronic filing is that the last-minute lines and crowds at Post Offices around the country are not what they used to be," said spokesman Eric Smith.
That's what the preliminary news reports suggest. While postal officials in Lafayette, La., are gearing up for any possibility, the Daily Advertiser reported that "Lafayette Postmaster Troy A. Southerland said filing returns online has reduced the number of late-night post office patrons [expected] on April 15." Here's some more from the Advertiser: "Last year, the post office didn't see the traditional tax-day rush expected, Southerland said. But, based on numbers from last year, the amount of mail processed is still expected to be up from a normal Friday. The Moss Street Post Office, which takes in mail from the 705 and 706 zip codes, expects to receive 425,688 pieces of mail Friday. 'After last year, we really don't know for sure,' he said of how many people will be making last-minute dropoffs. 'We will be out in the front collecting it.'"
Shreveport, La.'s ABC affiliate, KTBS, reported that the Postal Service is cutting back on after-hour collections in town. "Postal officials in Shreveport-Bossier said today that -- with one exception -- it will not pick up tax returns dropped at post offices after normal business hours on Friday."
Now, the law of the conservation of mass suggests that a little less activity at point A would produce a little more activity at point B, even when you torture it to fit my example. (Hey, I'm a reporter, not Richard Feynman.) That prompted me to ask the IRS's Smith for some extremely valuable information: If the deadline to file electronically is also 11:59, how late -- technically speaking -- can you shave it?
Smith acknowledged that pushing the send button at 11:59 -- VERY technically speaking -- is playing within the rules, but the thought of people waiting that long sounded like it could produce hives in your friendly neighborhood taxman. "A lot of Web sites can be pretty overloaded, so it's best if you get your return done [early]," he said. "Don't wait until 11:59 p.m."
We talked some more about how great e-filing is, how cool it is to authorize direct debits and deposits and how when you are waiting for a refund you can file more or less whenever you want -- even after April 15. But I got the distinct impression that if you owe money to the guvmint, waiting until midnight tomorrow is less than a cat's whisker away is begging for trouble.
Smith said that the vagaries of Internet traffic, not just on the IRS site but on the Web in general, are the perfect analog to postal woes in the physical world: "It's the same as taking your chances on a mail pickup. If you know that the mail pickup is at a particular time and you get caught in traffic and miss it, you still miss it."
