IRS and USPS – taxing your wallet and patience

March 28, 2005

Checking my mailbox over the weekend, I was greeted with my tax return documents. Only thing is that those were supposed to be delivered to the darlings at the IRS. What steams me is that I made sure to mail my return from another government entity, the post office. They weighed the enveloped, printed the postage stamp, and sent it on its way. I even paid for delivery confirmation. Thankfully I had a return address on the envelope (I normally don't bother), and the envelope returned to me with an insufficient postage sticker. Nice!

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Wonder what would have happened if I was at the deadline date (I wasn't) and I owed money (I didn't). I guess on top of the wasted time and postage money, I would have been slapped with late IRS penalties too.

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Moral of the story? I'm not sure. I mean how much more certain can you be than taking your tax return envelope to the post office to send to the IRS? Maybe get a second opinion on the postage from a different post office?

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For some, e-file may be an option. I tried it a couple of years ago and it worked out great, but last year I had some hassles with it and ended up mailing in the return. It's back to e-file for me this year. And, what are my chances of recovering my postage fee from the USPS? Yeah, right.