Are You Sure You Filed Your Taxes on Time?

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USPS date stamp issues

What day did you drop that off? USPS Changes Can Affect Your Taxes Timeliness

It’s April 15 and you pop your return in the mail, but that might be too late. Procrastinators take note, filing your tax returns via mail on April 15 may not get the job done anymore. Due to changes at the US Postal Service, mail might not be postmarked on the same day it’s sent out. That makes your 11th-hour success story into an April 16 late fee flop.

The USPS isn’t technically changing how it postmarks items. Your mail will still get a date stamp when it gets to a processing facility. But your mail might take longer to actually make it to that facility.

These changes come about as the USPS is trying to save money by cutting back on how often it picks up mail from local post offices, making same-day postmarking less common, the agency warned at the end of last year. Keep these fixes in mind to avoid this issue:

  • Ask someone at the post office to manually postmark your tax return.
  • Deliver tax documents via UPS or FedEx.
  • File taxes electronically.

Keep in mind that this isn’t just a potential tax problem. All time-sensitive mail, like bills and ballots, could be affected, so set your calendar reminders accordingly.