As Tax Day creeps closer, I’ve been getting a slew of messages – on Twitter, email, and Facebook – hopeful that the big day will be pushed off a little bit more this year. Nope, not a chance.
It’s true that tax season feels as though it’s rushing by faster than ever this year. That’s because the season is actually pretty short. Last year, the IRS opened tax season on January 6, 2012, and accepted e-filed returns as early as January 17, 2012. Since April 15, 2012, happened to fall on a Sunday and Emancipation Day in Washington D.C. was celebrated on April 16, 2012, tax season was pushed all of the way out to April 17, 2012. It was also a leap year. With all of those extra days factored in, tax season was officially open for a whopping 102 days (the season for e-filing was open for 91 days).
This year, there’s no such luck. Tax season didn’t open early – it didn’t even open on time. The IRS wasn’t officially open for business until January 30, 2013.
So with a late start, do we get a few extra days? Nope.
What about short staffing at the IRS due to budget cuts? The IRS has already put the kibosh on rumors that sequestration might push the due date out.
And Emancipation Day? The D.C. based holiday celebrating the end of slavery is celebrated on April 16, 2013. That means it falls the day after Tax Day.
And Patriots’ Day? Not even Tom Brady can save this one. The New England holiday, which honors the battles of Lexington and Concord during the Revolutionary War, occasionally falls on Tax Day which meant that the IRS used to allow taxpayers in some states to have an extra filing day (in 2006 and in 2007, for example, but not in 2008, 2009, or 2010.) Despite the fact that Patriots’ Day actually falls on April 15, 2013, there’s no break this year. You see, back in the day, the IRS allowed taxpayers who filed using a service center in those states to have an extra day. In 2011, they decided to reroute returns to other facilities rather than give taxpayers the extra day. Now, no individual federal income tax returns are processed in Maine or Massachusetts, so there aren’t any extensions for taxpayers.
The result is an abbreviated tax season with just 75 days. The filing deadline for your U.S. individual income tax returns remains April 15, 2013.
Of course, it could be worse. In 1913, the filing deadline was March 1 (ouch). The annual filing date was officially changed to April 15 in 1955.
