Posted on: January 5th, 2012 by Amy Bolger
For the second year in a row, the IRS is giving taxpayers two extra days to get their taxes turned in this year. While Tax Day typically falls on April 15, the IRS announced Wednesday that it is pushing back this year’s filing deadline to Tuesday, April 17.
The extension was granted because April 15 falls on a Sunday this year, and Monday is Emancipation Day, a holiday in Washington D.C. that celebrates the freeing of slaves in the district. Last year, Tax Day was extended until April 18, also thanks to Emancipation Day.
The IRS will also begin accepting returns submitted online through the agency’s e-filing system, which the IRS says is the fastest, most accurate filing option for taxpayers, on January 17.
If you are requesting an extension, you have until Oct. 15 to file your 2011 tax return, the agency said.
The IRS said it expects to receive more than 144 million individual tax returns this year, with the majority projected to be submitted by the new April 17 deadline.
Posted on: January 5th, 2011 by Amy Bolger
It seems we will all get three extra days to file our taxes this year. They’ll be due on Mon., April 18. Why is this you may ask – It’s not that pesky processing delay the IRS keeps telling us about. Instead, the extra days are as a result of Emancipation Day. It is a little-known Washington, DC holiday that celebrates the freeing of slaves in the District.
The holiday actually falls on Saturday, April 16, but it is observed in D.C. on Friday, April 15. That prompted the IRS to extend the tax filing deadline to April 18 this year. Under the tax code, filing deadlines can’t fall on Saturdays, Sundays, or holidays. The last time an extension was granted for this reason was in 2007.
This won’t have much effect on the processing delay though. The delay, caused by Congress waiting until late December to pass new tax policies, simply means that the 50 million taxpayers who itemize their taxes on a Schedule A form can’t file until February. However, the IRS estimates that less than 9 million taxpayers will end up being impacted by the delay, based on historical filing patterns.
