Post Offices Open Late on Tax Day

If you procastinated or ‘forgot’ about your taxes this year or live under a rock, here’s a reminder: the deadline is April 15th. If you’re reading this on Wednesday April 15th around 5pm you better get your @ss in gear. If you’re not e-filing and are actually mailing out your tax return, make sure you know the time of last collection at your local post office. If your return is postmarked on the 15th then you’re good to go. But what if it’s late in the afternoon and you won’t be able to make that 5pm pickup time? If you’re lucky, there may be a post office near you that has extended hours for tax day or super late collection times. It’s a pain to find out which ones but here’s what to do:

Go to the tax return section of the USPS website

On the right side, click “Go” under the “Post Office Locator” box

Type in your zipcode in the text box and click “search”

This will list all the post offices near you. Here’s the painful part, you have to click on each bolded post office link to see if they have extended hours for April 15th. It would be nice if they could just specify on the list page but there’s a little reminder on the right side that states “service hours my vary. Please check link for business hours.”

If you want to forego all this pain, just e-file your return. If you’ve never e-filed your tax return before, wake up and get on the bandwagon. The IRS has free fillable forms on their website. Also, the IRS partners with Free File Alliance LLC which is a group of private sector tax software companies. These include the big guns like H&R block and TurboTax as well as a whole list of other companies. Just click here and click on “choose a company.” These third party companies offer free prep and e-filing if your adjusted gross income is less than $56,000 for 2008. Most likely they’ll charge you to e-file your state return.

So get on it! Remember, you don’t have to file your return at the last minute. As soon as you get your W-2(s) and/or 1099s  (in January) you can file at any time. The sooner you file your return, the sooner you get your cash, unless you owe the government…

Want to know if you’re going to get a stimulus payment? The IRS will tell  you here. The IRS will tell you anything you need to know. Just browse through their website. You can even call them if you want. They will answer.

Too late? Want to file an extension? Here’s the info you need.

Good Luck and I hope you get a nice fat return this year!