We had to file an extension. My wife (the brains of the outfit) fell and broke her arm two weeks ago and is in constant pain, despite the Oxycodone and the TurboTax people took care of it and we’ll all hunker down soon and crunch the numbers.
I did a little bit of looking into it (including asking Claude so take it how you want) and nothing said that envelopes were all scanned. The suggestion was that they didn’t bother to do much with the envelopes (though they do keep them) unless it was notably late, such as coming in a week after Tax Day when regular mail delays wouldn’t explain it. That said, I ain’t no expert so if anyone has a link, be interested to find out.
Questionably accurate LLM Yipyap
The IRS receives an enormous surge of paper returns in the days surrounding April 15. Processing centers are essentially in triage mode. Realistically, mail that arrives within a few days after the deadline is often processed without anyone scrutinizing the postmark closely, simply because:
-
Volume is too high for careful individual inspection
-
A return postmarked April 14 mailed from rural Montana might not physically arrive until April 19 or 20, and that’s completely expected
-
Staff are focused on processing, not auditing postmarks
When scrutiny actually kicks in
The IRS generally starts paying closer attention to postmarks when a return arrives:
-
More than a week or two after the deadline — at that point it’s less plausibly explained by normal mail transit time
-
With a penalty notice trigger — the system may flag a late-received return for a late filing penalty, which then prompts a human to actually look at the postmark to determine if the penalty is valid
A long time ago, (when I was getting refunds and not sending money) I’d mail on 4/16 to see if anyone cared. No one did. But, things change and technology certainly has improved. I can’t say it doesn’t matter, but if I was a day late with my postmark I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it.
The main post office in the big city was open until midnight on the 15th. TV news was always there for live hits at 11pm showing the cars in line to drop their returns into the mailbox.
Not only are they not open until midnight anymore but the local POs are only open until either 4 or 4:30. Sucks for anyone who works a regular job & needs to do anything there.
I recall that. I think it was what motived my little experiment. I never thought such 11th hour stress was necessary.
It really depends on the source of the LLM’s info. Did you follow the links? If it’s advice from a professional tax preparer, maybe OK. Some rando on reddit? Worthless.
And really, any assumption that a government agency today is working the same as in past years is questionable to start.
Likewise, the idea that any agency is making major changes in a short period is pretty questionable. The IRS is notably underfunded and ill equipped to be bringing in a bunch of new scanners and whatnot. Which is why I wondered if there was a cite for them doing so.
Not IRS related, but my wife works in relation to a federal government agency and they have spent the last 15 months basically debating whether to change an aspect of their website development or not. Not actually changing it, just going in circles about whether or not they want to. The wheels grind slowly indeed.
From some looking around I did , it seems the postmark has been applied at the regional sorting facility for quite some time. The National Postal Museum says that postmarks being applied at processing facilities started in the 70s and a couple of Reddit posts dated 3 years ago that say the postmark was applied at the sorting facility , so the IRS has probably been ignoring late postmarks for a long time. According to USPS, the new rule doesn’t change any postmarking procedure but was issued for clarification. I don’t know if I believe them about that being the reason* , but I do believe that the postmarks have been applied at the sorting center for quite some time and also, it’s always been true that you can’t be certain of the postmark date unless you handed the mail to an employee and watched them apply the postmark. If you dropped in in a slot in the wall at the post office or in a mailbox, there was never any guarantee that it wouldn’t fall behind a table and miss getting postmarked that day. I remember photos of people being lined up at the big post office in Manhattan to get the April 15 postmark on their tax returns. You had to be in line by midnight.
* I think the reason for the rule “clarification” was to cause the confusion that is happening now and thereby discourage people from voting by mail. Because apparently, the American people are too stupid/unconcerned/lazy/maybe something else to mail their ballot back within a couple of days of receiving it.
In Canada, the deadline is April 30. However, the deadline is irrelevant if you don’t actually owe any taxes, So I’ll be late as usual. The nice thing about being late, in fact, is that various entitlements arrive in a nice, tidy lump sum of sweet cash! One time when I filed back taxes that were many years late I received a blizzard of cheques totalling nearly $15,000!
All of which was already your money; just “invested” for years at a negative rate of return. Talk about “own goals”.
While true, it’s a bit misleading. Yes, postmarks have been applied at the sorting facility for some time. But there is a big consolidation of sorting facilities happening, so whereas mail used to be postmarked same day or at most a day later, it is now more likely to take 1-2 days. The USPS describes it as “adjustments to our transportation operations that will result in some mailpieces not arriving at our originating processing facilities on the same day that they are mailed.”
Formal rule change or not, things have changed.
What is this “refund” of which y’all speak? If I don’t owe at the end of the year, I feel like I cheated myself out of money.
And I always extend. My old accountant used to do my taxes for a bar tab as long as I didn’t want it filed by 4/15.
This is the first year in a while that I actually owe the IRS money, because I started collecting SocSec last year and due my other income a good chunk of my SocSec is taxable. I found this out in late February when I did the rough draft of my tax paperwork, and then confirmed it a few weeks later. So I decided to wait until closer to the deadline to mail in the forms. Everything is filled out and on my computer, so all I should have to do tomorrow morning is do a final check and print everything out, write the check, and put it out for the carrier to pick up.
Oh, and I need to do my state taxes. But unless there’s an issue with the SocSec benefits also being taxable by the state I should be getting my usual refund from them.
AIUI, if you take it into the post office and ask for that day’s postmark to be applied locally, they’ll still do that.
At any rate, I hope so, because that’s what I’m figuring on. (It’s a small town post office, not much in the way of lines.)
— Last year I realized I wasn’t going to make it and filed for the automatic extension. A couple of months later I got a letter saying I’d filed the extension too late and needed to file the taxes right away. I wrote back right away that I’d checked my notes and (true) I had filed the extension on time, and suggested that they might have lost the envelope. I never heard any more about it. (I did file the taxes eventually, though not immediately; and had to pay a small fine for late payment, as I’d misjudged and did owe them something, but not much.)
Agree that “tax refund” is a other word for “sucker”.
But given that you have to pay in full by April 15th, filing up to 6 months later isn’t beneficial whether you owe them or they owe you.
Currying favor w your accountant by not being part of their rush is a valid goal. But IMO trivial on the scale of taxes.
If you’re trying to imply that my personal financial management is grossly incompetent … well, your’re right! 
Yep. IME the interest and penalties for late or underpayment are trivial; nothing like the fees and usury common w commercial credit cards.
If for whatever reason good or bad you’re late or behind on taxes, the consequences (above and beyond the taxes owed themselves) are mild.
Thanks for the reminder-- I did my federal and state a couple of weeks ago, but I still need to do municipal.
But it’s more fun that way!
I’m terminally lazy. Amazing dumbness occurs as a side effect. Mostly its about stuff other than taxes. Mostly.
I did mean to mention that , and that it might take 1-2 days instead of by the next day. But I honestly don’t think that if the IRS gets my return with a postmark of 4/17 (after the consolidation) it will treat it any differently than if they get it with a postmark of 4/17 after the consolidation. I doubt it would be worthwhile to have a human check every envelope that arrives on or after 4/17 especially since around 75% of returns result in a refund, and there is no penalty for filing late unless you owe money.