Federal returns are due Monday. State returns however are not due until Tuesday
View full sizePeople stand outside the Springfield Post Office on Liberty Street for the annual Tea Party rally. The number of demonstrators was significantly below the turnout from last year.SPRINGFIELD - People who have yet to file their income taxes returns have a little time left - but not much - to get their 2010 returns in.
In most years, the deadline for filing a tax return in April 15, but this year federal returns are not due until Monday.
The extra time is the result of most federal offices in Washington, D.C., being closed Friday in observance of a local holiday, Emancipation Day.
The day, celebrated each April 16, marks the anniversary of the date in 1862 that Abraham Lincoln signed the Compensated Emancipation Act, which freed some 3,000 slaves in Washington D.C.
In Massachusetts, people get until Tuesday to file their state returns because offices will be closed on Monday for Patriot’s Day, the annual holiday observing the start of the American Revolution in Lexington and Concord. IRS spokeswoman Peggy Riley emphasized federal returns are still due Monday in Massachusetts, regardless of Patriot’s Day.
“Federal returns are due Monday. State returns can be filed on Tuesday,” she said.
When federal returns used to be processed in Andover, Massachusetts residents would in some years get an extra day to file if tax day coincided with Patriot’s Day. Not any more, she said.
Riley said that as of the first week of April, there have been 2.13 million tax returns filed in Massachusetts out of an estimated total of 3.1 million, or about 70 percent.
In other words, three of every 10 people have yet to file a return going into the final weekend. The number is a little higher than it was at this time last year, she said.
“A lot of people wait until the last minute - especially people who owe money,” Riley said.
Of the 2.13 million people in Massachusetts to file, 1.77 million, or 76 percent, have filed electronically over the Internet instead of through the mail.
That figure helps explains why tax day is no longer such a big deal for the U.S. Postal System.
“It’s not really the event that it was,” said Maureen P. Marion, Northeast communications manager for the U.S. Postal Service.
“Long story short, our role in how people do their filing has obviously changed,” she said.
Most forms are sent in over the Internet. Most return checks are directly deposited into bank accounts. “It’s a significant change for the post office,” she said.
It wasn’t too long ago that some post offices, like the main branch in downtown Springfield, would stay open until midnight on tax day, offering last minute help and creating an overall party atmosphere to lighten the mood for late filers.
Now most branches close at their regular time, she said.
The only action outside the Springfield main post office on Liberty Street were members of local tea party groups who were staging their annual rally for reducing the size of the government.
The group has held a rally at the post office on tax day since 2008. Unlike last year when the rally attracted an estimated 300 people at its peak, the crowd Friday totaled about 50 people.
William Gunn, of Ware, said the low turnout was equal parts poor planning by rally organizers and overall disillusionment by members.
“I think there’s been some burn out,” Gunn said.
He said there are many people who feel duped to have spent the last two years working to elect candidates who made promises about shrinking government before Election Day that they have failed to keep afterward.
“They know what to say to get us to vote for them,” he said.