I wouldn't answer the door anymore if I were you...

..or the phone.

Costa Rica is nice this time of year.

Every year, I put four stamps on each envelope, just to be on the safe side. It's my weird paranoid ritual.

Electronic Filing.
Electronic Filing.
Electronic Filing.

The Internets are a wonderful thing.

This is on of my pet peeves. If we're going to be obligated to mail in returns and potentially thousands of dollars, is it to much to ask for free postage?

Hmm. The post office took your return, put it in the truck, drove it back to the post office, weighed it, put a note on it, put it back in the truck and delivered it back to you in the name of 9 cents.

I think it depends if you owe or are getting a refund. I'm not completely sure on this point, but I think if you are getting a refund it can be late; the 15th is the deadline if you owe.

Sorry Stephen. Late is late. The postmark rules. Thus spake my roomie, the CPA.

Last year I filed my return in July. When they owe you money, it doesn't much matter.

Why, oh why, did you not go down to the post office, and send it registered with a return receipt? That way, you get a receipt you can use when the IRS screws up to prove you mailed it in to them (of course, you could have mailed an empty envelope, but ha, you've got the receipt!). And then the nice, overstressed postal employee would have told you exactly how much it cost, and no worries.

Remember, the flag is flying at half mast at the post office because of the Pope, not because they're hiring.

You're doomed. Start practicing your anal clenches; Federal prisons can be pretty rough on pretty men like you.

Or they might just say "screw it" and put it in the pile for processing. It's not like they aren't busy this time of year.

No, no problem... just put your house in your secretary's name. No reason.

Did they at least postmark it before they sent it back?

By the way, I agree with the idea that if are due a refund, you should file electronically and do it as early as possible. Of course, you're still giving the US Treasury a free loan.

If you owe money, you should send it snail mail using the maximum number of papers possible (i.e. no "condensed forms" for saving paperwork). I would also suggest sending the whole message Certified Mail with Return Receipt. If the IRS losses your form or has workers destroying forms (again) you can prove that you mailed it on time.

Well, when I was short postage, and had to add one stamp, I ended up having to do a whole new envelope with two more stamps - the USPS decided that the original stamp didn't count or something.

So you might get it back and have to put three stamps on it.

If you don't owe, you don't technically need to file at all. There's an enforcement grace period of a week or two if you owe; past that, you owe a penalty of 5% a month from April 15th. Criminal penalties only kick in if they catch you before you file.

http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a960405.html

Don't sweat it. Absolutely no one at the IRS has the time to look at postmarks this time of year. A "postmark checker" position would have to be established.

I once knew an IRS employee and she commented on this years ago. I was late by a day or three several time, never heard a thing. I always owed them too.

They did lose a check once (not the return) and after a bit of back and forth, I sent another check and all was well.

Ya dork!
Throw some postage on an envelope? At least go to http://postcalc.usps.gov/ and find out what the bundespost thinks it might be.

ed

"You people are so lazy. I did my taxes over a year ago."

I was once months late with a return that said I owed hundreds of dollars. My preparer was a former IRS auditor. I asked how much trouble I was going to be in for doing a late return with owed money. She laughed and said, "Your check's not going to bounce is it? As long as they have their money, they're happy."

If they owe you they will be in no hurry to pay, so it will not be a big deal, but if you own them....you are so screwed.

Ya know, reading Stephen's post and then these comments, the thought occurred that if this isn't yet another advertisement for a flat tax, I don't know what is.
Filing would be so much simpler and fairer, not to mention easier.

Ofcourse you still have to get the letter in the mail on time!

OMG, do you think they'll give you Michael Jackson as a "roomie"?

Same thing happened to me. I mailed it Friday, it was postmarked Friday and on Saturday it was in my mailbox saying I owe 23 cents. Now I'm gonna Fed Ex the ^%&er --in the envelope with the 4/15 postmark which will have it arrive the same day it would had I not screwed up.

I concur - get yourself to the post office next year and pay for return receipt.

It's valid. If the PO or IRS loses it, not your fault.

We've been doing that for years.

I've always thought that there was effectively no due date if you were owed a refund. The Internal Revenue Code, however, says that April 15 is the due date:

http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/uscode26/usc_sec_26_00006072----000-.html

It may just be that it's officially the due date but there's no penalty for failing to meet it if you're owed a refund.

Flat tax is the way to go, I did my PA tax return via the phone, took a total of 10 minutes. We used the internet to do our fed tax since we get money back.

Kevin

Never ever ever ever ever overpay your taxes during the year through withholding. It's a freakin loan to the
Feds. I'm always underpaid (the minimum during the year). Have been ever since I've learned about the time value of money. Anybody who consistently over pays their income taxes and is happy about a refund should not be allowed to participant in the forthcoming private social security accounts.

The Almighty tells me He can get me out of this mess, but He's pretty sure you're fucked.

Flat Tax:

IRS Form 00001

1. Wages for last year: ___________
2. Send it.

Steve, I saw you in your hot little convertible today at Vindicator & Rockrimmon...I was heading the other way, otherwise I would have yelled out "better hide that car from the IRS, prison bait!"

1 day= 1 month to he IRS. Expect to be penalized.

Cuban night, eh? ate well? probably better than the cubans. Agree that these guys have great food, just that they can't eat any of it themselves, unless they are members of the Party.

Yeah, PA has a flat tax rate on income.

However, they screw you in other ways. They tax just about everything except the clothes on your back and that apple you are eating. Which got taxed as income anyway. By the time you are done with PA, they've taxed you three or four times.

Maryland, however, screws you the same way as the government does - but at least they make their taxes easy! Online filing that calculates your tax for you from your income is sweet.

I do not know if the situation has changed since I last checked it out, but at the time it was as follows:

If you're expecting a refund, you're OK.

If you owe them additional money, you are screwed. Badly. The penalty is 5% of the total amount of your tax liability for each month or part of a month the return is late, starting from the first day.

In other words, suppose the total tax you owe for the year is $20,000 and you have already paid $19,800 in withholding and estimated taxes. Then the penalty for filing late is 5% of $20,000, or $1,000. That's right, you're hit with a $1,000 penalty for being one day late on a $200 bill.

At least that's what the IRS told me when they decided I had filed my return late a number of years back. And in fact I hadn't filed it late--it's just that I was traveling on the other side of the country so the return took a few extra days to get there.

I responded with a letter explaining that I had filed my return on time, that I had a witness who was willing if necessary to testify under oath that I had filed it on time, and that I would like the IRS to send me a copy of the envelope bearing the late postmark so that I could investigate their claim.

Two months went by and I got another letter saying that in addition to the huge penalty, I now owed additional interest on the penalty.

I sent them a second letter, along with a copy of their first letter and my original response, explaining that I was not going to respond further to their second letter until they had responded to my response to their first letter.

Two more months went by, after which I got another letter saying that I didn't owe them anything.

Anyway, this was a number of years ago, so the penalties may have changed. But if they have, I'll bet they haven't gotten smaller.

Oh, yeah -- to the people who say that you should send your taxes by registered or certified mail: Why bother?

All that registered or certified mail will do is let you find out what went wrong if your return never gets there. That information will do you no good at all, because as far as the IRS is concerned, you still didn't file on time.

There was a court ruling a few years ago--I think it was even the Supreme Court but don't remember for sure. A taxpayer mailed his return on April 15, putting it in a mail box before the time for last pickup that was marked on the box. Unfortunately, the last pickup time marked on the box was wrong and the mail wasn't picked up until the next day. Accordingly, the return was late.

The taxpayer argued that he had done everything that was reasonable in order to ensure that the return was on time. The IRS argued that a return is late if it is postmarked after April 15, regardless of circumstances.

The IRS won. They usually do.

So given this case, why would you think that sending it by certified mail will get you off the hook if your return goes astray?

I couldnt even find a stamp.
Guess Ill file twice next year.
Hope I dont get in trouble for that.
Maybe Ill get to meet you in the 'yard' this summer.
Hell, they can take everything from you except your birthday...
I guess thats all we really have.

Did the same thing. See you in jail.

I was audited by The Great State Of New York about 5 years ago. Not sure if this matters, but I have only filed using the 1040EZ since I started filing in 1990. The result? A nasty letter saying I owed them a grand total of $0.24. My bank at the time charged me $0.25 a check and the postage was $0.34. I called the IRS and asked if I really needed to send in a twenty-four cent check. They replied that although I would have to spend $0.59 to pay $0.24, I still needed to do it. Or I could drive to my local IRS office and pay it in person.

Apparently, the audit was a random check, and I rounded a number off when I shouldn't have. I think I originally owed $26 or so, and I filed in January.