1040 time
Procrastinators hurry to file taxes

Tax Preparer, Major Johnson shakes hands with Antony Notah after completing tax form at T&R Tax in the Rio West Mall. April 15th was the last day to file taxes. [photo by Daniel Zollinger / Independent]

By Bill Donovan
Staff writer

GALLUP — Albuquerque television stations were reporting long lines of people at local post offices late Tuesday, getting their federal income tax forms in before the midnight deadline.

In Gallup, it was more of a trickle as a total of six people, all Navajo, showed up near midnight at the new post office on Aztec Avenue. In fact, only four showed up between 11:50 p.m. and midnight. The other two came after midnight — one as late as 12:08 a.m. — which was all right since no one from the post office had showed up by 12:10 a.m. to lock the place up.

Interestingly enough, all five of the people who were interviewed and asked why they filed so late declined to give their names, which can only lead one to theorize that filing income tax reports at the last minute in Gallup has some sort of social stigmatism associated with it, like getting caught picking your nose in public.

I was one of those who turned in their tax return just before midnight. But unlike all of the others, who were filing their returns, I was filing for an extension. If you’re going to procrastinate, you might as well do it right.

Two women who filed late said work kept them from getting their tax returns in earlier. One argued that April 15 should be a national holiday so people would have time to do their taxes instead of having to wait until they got home.

Another woman said she wanted to file as late as possible because she owed money this year and saw no sense of filing early.

A man and a woman arrived about 11:45 p.m. and just parked in front of the post office on Aztec and could be seen going over their tax reports one last time before mailing it. When approached with a question, the man snipped, “I don’t have time for that right now” which proves that some late filers are not only procrastinators, but not nice people as well.

One man who admitted being a procrastinator tried to redeem himself by saying that in years past, he had filed his tax report way before the deadline but this year he just kept postponing it.

“I thought I was going to have to pay but it looks like I’m be getting a good refund,” he said.

Which may be why the other man was snippy — maybe he wasn’t getting a good refund.

I think I had a good excuse.

I was planning on doing it Sunday, but Saturday I had fish at a restaurant and got a fish bone caught in my throat, which sent me to the emergency room and pretty well killed off Sunday. Sometime late Sunday or early Monday, the fish bone passed but the trauma of it all was still with me on Monday and Tuesday which is why I didn’t get around to it then.

Well, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

No one reported to me that they were filing late because they had been abducted by aliens and were only released that day, which was odd because I read this report on the Internet which indicated that this has happened at least once. Aliens must have a sense of right from wrong and want to be good American citizens by not keeping anyone from filing their tax reports on time.

If this is true, maybe the federal government should take this into consideration and give these people the same benefits they give astronauts who are in space on April 15 — they get an automatic extension. And the government should also allow them to declare the time they were abducted on their next year’s taxes as being out of the country, which may reduce their tax burden slightly.

For those who care, sites on the Internet say that the most common excuse for filing late is procrastination — 35 percent — followed by being on trips and not getting back on time — 23 percent — and getting into the preparation only to find you don’t have all your tax records or just can’t figure out how to complete those darn reports — 11 percent. Only 10 percent said they waited until the last moment because they were going to owe Uncle Sam, although it’s possible that a lot of people who viewed themselves as procrastinators may have had that as part of their reason.