Taxpaying is a civic ritual. The annual ceremony -- gathering records, completing returns, rushing to the post office -- has been diluted in recent years, especially by the rise of electronic filing. But April 15 remains a national anti-holiday of sorts. It may not be fun, but it's a touchstone of American citizenship.
Tax day has a tendency to shift slightly from year to year, depending on weekends and the proximity of Emancipation Day, a legal holiday in the District of Columbia. This year returns are due April 18. (Patriot's Day, celebrated in New England, also used to delay filing deadlines for taxpayers in some states, but not since the IRS facility in Andover, Mass., stopped processing individual returns.)
But why is April 15 the target for individual filing? Why not a different day, or even a different month?
Read Full Article »
