Extra day a quiet one for tax preparers
Many had vacation plans, and IRS extension didn’t interfere
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
The last day of this year’s tax season was a relatively quiet one at Barnes Tax Associates in Bellevue — with the exception of one slowpoke client who came to the office Wednesday apologizing for having to file a late return.
The man had forgotten to request an extension and he expected to pay a penalty.
Instead of facing a fine, he was pleasantly surprised to find out the Internal Revenue Service had actually extended the deadline this year.
“He was very happy to find out that he was on time,” said Dave Barnes, the firm’s owner.
As millions of tax filers experienced a computer glitch on Tuesday that prevented the IRS from processing many returns filed electronically, the federal agency announced late that evening that it would let taxpayers submit tax returns without penalty through Wednesday.
The tax deadline — typically April 15 — had already been pushed back two days later than usual. That’s because April 15 landed on a Sunday this year and then Monday was Emancipation Day, a holiday in the District of Columbia.
But the rare extra, extra extension didn’t change the plans of many exhausted tax advisers.
For the most part, the lights were turned off at accounting firms around the Pittsburgh region on Wednesday.
After more than three months of burning the latenight oil and working weekends buried under a pile of old receipts and W2s, many people in the tax preparation business already had vacation plans on the calendar.
Calls to Pittsburgh firms were being answered by voicemail and answering services. Receptionists who did show up for work offered apologies for their bosses who had taken the day off.
That wasn’t true for everyone, of course. Even with three extra days to get taxes filed on time this year, some clients and accounting firms still found themselves in some form of clock-racing mode.
William Opaska, owner of Opaska & Co. CPAs in Green Tree, said some of his clients had their tax returns rejected for various reasons. The extra filing day took some pressure off his firm to get them refiled in time.
Then, there is always at least one straggler.
“Although we had filed all of our extensions, we had one client call today and we were able to file his return under the gun,” Mr. Opaska said. “He ran his own numbers and thought he had a small refund. But we found he owed some money.
“But the deadline Wednesday was the deadline to file. Not a deadline to pay,” he said. “So we were able to get it in.”
Times sure have changed.
After 43 years in the business, Mr. Opaska remembers when cars were lined up on Grant Street and postal workers stood outside the U.S. Post Office busily stamping tax returns up until midnight on tax day.
He imagines the same scene in today’s computer age with millions of lastminute filers trying to access an electronic IRS system that cannot handle all the sudden traffic.
“There’s a lot of procrastinators out there,” he said. “I don’t know if they enjoy the excitement of the rush. Every year you get down to the wire and there’s always a few people trying to slip in.”