“I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.” ~ Douglas Adams, Humorist/Novelist
Did you meet the Tax Day deadline…or will you be hearing a whooshing sound? Hopefully your forms are signed, sealed and stamped, and you’ve got some spare time for some fun tax day trivia:
So, why is the deadline today? When the 16th amendment of 1913 started taxing anyone earning $3,000 or more, the filing deadline was actually March 1. Rumor has it, the date was changed to April 15 in 1955 because the IRS wanted more time to do the work. And to the IRS’s defense, processing returns really is a daunting task. If each form was processed in one minute, which would be warp-speed, it would take one person about 445 years to get the job done.
But just doing one tax return can be a challenge for even the smartest citizen. Albert Einstein once said, “The hardest thing in the world to understand is income tax.” And that’s when tax forms were only three pages long. Now the easiest tax form has 33 pages of instruction! So it’s probably no surprise that some people simply skip filing. But it is a shock to find out who breaks the law. In 1952, Joseph Nunan was imprisoned for five years for tax evasion…and to think that he was once the Commissioner of the IRS!
On the other end of the spectrum, the IRS’s favorite taxpayers are married, childless people who rent their homes and earn a decent salary—because they get the fewest breaks. And speaking of breaks, did you know car accidents tend to go up 6% on April 15? It’s probably due to people racing to the post office — so slow down and try to have a stress-free day!
View: Happy Tax Day (Postcard) from American Greetings
