Two more days make preparation less of a burden for many filers

Tick tock, tick tock. The end of yet another tax season is near.

“It almost feels like Christmas Eve,” Lawrence tax preparer Brenda Lenz said. “Every time I think I’ve got things under control, something else happens.”

It’s been an odd tax season around here, to be certain. Not only has the deadline for filing been pushed through the weekend until tonight, but now many procrastinating residents will have to push their personal deadline up a few hours.

The Lawrence post office, 645 Vt., will call it a day at 7 p.m., bucking the years-old trend of remaining open until midnight for last-minute filers.

The post office announced the earlier closing time last week, but on Sunday, Lawrence resident Anne Garlinghouse still hadn’t heard about it.

“I was going to go there at 8,” she said.

Postmaster Judy Raney said that the early close – primarily for imposed payroll restrictions – should make life around there hectic come tonight.

“I think between 5 and 7, we’ll be really busy,” Raney said.

But on the other hand, Raney said, the additional day to file taxes may have thinned out the last-minute herd.

She said that the post office was busy Friday and Saturday, leaving questions about what may come today.

The additional time has made life easier for Lenz as well, she said. In fact, the extra day has allowed many who often file on April 15 to get their returns postmarked days before this year’s deadline.

“Everyone’s been kind of ahead of schedule,” Lenz said.

The later deadline may have confused some people, Lenz said, as residents rushed in Saturday trying to get their returns in on time.

But accountant Brian Dreger, from the firm Brotsman and Dreger, didn’t notice a lot of rushing over the weekend. In fact, Dreger said that many of his clients took their time this tax season.

“Two extra days to file is just two extra days to procrastinate,” he said Sunday. “If it weren’t for the last minute, nothing would ever get done.”

For those unable to file by tonight’s deadline, there is hope. The Internal Revenue Service offers extension forms – little slips that take up about a third of a page – that allows additional time to file. They are available at any tax preparation office.

For those needing more time to pay, the IRS offers options as well. Tax preparers or the IRS offer an Installment Agreement Request – Lenz calls it an I-M-Poor form – that allows people to pay off owed taxes in smaller installments.

All weekend, Lenz – along with countless other preparers and individuals – have been shuffling these forms along with myriad others. The lists of 1040s, 990s, 9465s and others begin to blur together.

“That’s part of it,” Shawnee resident John Langenberg said while chatting outside of the Eldridge Hotel on Sunday. “The other is having to pay someone to begin with.”

But after tonight, it will be all over – at least for those not needing an extension.

The rush will end for Lenz and other tax preparers as well. If today is Christmas on the tax preparer’s calendar, the long off season between now and April 15, 2007, begins Tuesday.

Any big plans?

“My assistant and I will be leaving the planet,” Lenz said.

Even lawmakers who write tax codes hire professionals to file their annual returns

By Mary Dalrymple – Associated Press Writer

Washington – When it comes to their own tax returns, many members of Congress who specialize in writing tax laws turn to professional preparers rather than completing the paperwork themselves.

“It’s onerous, and everybody knows it,” said Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass.

Three of the four top lawmakers on the Senate Finance and House Ways and Means committees, which are in charge of writing tax laws, pay a professional to file their annual tax returns with the Internal Revenue Service.

The exception is the Ways and Means chairman, Rep. Bill Thomas, R-Calif. The former college professor said he has prepared his own return “forever” and that he waits until close to the deadline to file. Today is the filing deadline for most people.

“There’s no reason for me to pay Uncle Sam – pay, you heard that – until I have to,” he said.

How about one of the tax writers who could become chairman after Thomas retires at year’s end?

“Absolutely not,” said Rep. Jim McCrery, R-La. “I’m not an accountant. I’m a lawyer.”

New York Rep. Charles Rangel, the top Democrat on the Ways and Means Committee, and Sens. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and Max Baucus, D-Mont., the Finance Committee chairman and ranking Democrat, all depend on professional tax preparers.

According to IRS statistics, that makes these members of Congress much like the public. More than 60 percent of taxpayers turn to a paid professional to prepare their returns. The number typically increases a little each year.

Some lawmakers have more complicated financial lives than the average taxpayer, making their returns more complicated. Some said they had a professional do the job to guarantee the return’s accuracy.

David Keating, senior counselor at the National Taxpayers Union, said lawmakers should at least try to complete their own returns. Members of tax-writing committees should have to spend 20 hours working on their tax returns before giving up and handing the job to a professional, he suggested.

“If they’re going to sit on a tax-writing committee, it certainly makes a lot of sense for them at least to attempt to do their own tax return,” Keating said. “And when they scream out ‘Torture!’ to their tax preparer, at least they’d have a better view.”

A few do dive in on their own.

Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said he does them “just so I can go through the process.” Then he asks an accountant to check for mistakes.

Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., usually prepares his own taxes using computer software. Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, does his tax return and his children’s.

Rep. Kevin Brady’s wife, a former banker, prepares the tax returns for the Texas Republican’s family.

Rep. Jim Ramstad, R-Minn., does not do his own returns, but he agreed it might be a good idea to try. “I think it is important that we operate in the real world,” he said.

These lawmakers have offered ideas to simplify the tax system, but none has gotten close to enactment.

Rep. John Linder, R-Ga., dislikes the tax system so much that he wants to scrap individual tax filing and the Internal Revenue Service. He would trade the income tax system for a consumption tax.

A less drastic change is advocated by Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore. He did not prepare his real tax returns, but he was able to prepare a hypothetical tax return in 30 minutes based on his proposed simplified tax system.

“This last fact is truly revolutionary because no one can remember the last time a member of the tax-writing Senate Finance Committee actually completed their own tax return,” he said.