April 15, 2010

Postmark by April 15

Tax day used to be fascinating to me as a teenager watching the news with footage of long lines of cars at the central post office late into the night arriving in time to get their returns postmarked by April 15th.
Now that I pay taxes, I have figured out that the people in these lines are either incredibly stupid for not filing their returns earlier to collect their refunds earlier. Or they are earning enough that they have to pay taxes over the amount of their standard payroll deductions. Neither is worth pity from my decidedly middle class viewpoint. Plus, who mails their taxes any more, anyway?

1 comment:

Grammarian@mindspring.com said...

They're also incredibly stupid for not realizing that if you have a refund coming, the April 15th date doesn't apply to you in practice. If you file late, the penalty is to pay interest on the money you owe. If they owe you, it doesn't much matter if you file on the 15th or the 16th or the 20th or next year. Yes, you lose the interest you would have earned if you'd gotten the money and put it somewhere where it would earn interest, but for most people, that's $0.00.