Texas Tax Day Trap: Mailing Your Return on April 15 Could Cost You

If you wait until the last minute to mail in your income tax forms, it could cost you this year!

New U.S. Postal Service Rules

Just in time for the yearly activity, we all hate the most...new U.S. Postal Service rules will determine when mail receives its postmark, and that could mean that some tax payments will be late. The rule change allows mail to be postmarked days after it is put in a mailbox.

Location, Location, Location

In the past, your mail was postmarked at your nearby post office. Not anymore! According to KWTX, a rule change now has mail being postmarked at regional distribution centers (Austin, Dallas) rather than locally. Mail will not be postmarked until it reaches the distribution center, which could be days after it is mailed. This is not a good thing because the state of Texas and the federal government use the postmarked date to determine if payments are mailed on time. If you cut it too close to the due date, your payment may be seen as late.

Local Post Offices to the Rescue!

Before you completely freak out, there is a way to avoid the late payment drama. If you want your tax return to be on time, drive over to your local post office and have them manually postmark your mail free of charge. A spokesperson for the USPS told KWTX “postmarks continue to be applied in the same manner and to the same extent as before. However, as part of our modernization program, the Postal Service made adjustments to our transportation operations that may result in some mail pieces not arriving at our originating processing facilities on the same day that they are mailed.”