Happy tax deadline day!
Maybe it's because we're all so consumed by candidate putdowns of small-town Americans and fibs about sniper fire, but April 15 doesn't seem to be generating the rush of activity and anxiety that it once did.
It used to be, April 15 brought extended post office schedules and lines of people and cars as last-minute filers played beat the clock in the day's waning hours. It seemed to be a tax-day ritual to save until the last day the completing of paperwork and stuffing it in a big envelope. And every year, whichever newspaper I was at would publish the same annual stories, first of how busy accountants were and later how frantic tax filers were as midnight on April 16 approached.
Now, mostly because of electronic filing and this year with the promise of economic stimulus checks, there just doesn't seem to be the same kind of rush at the finish. And newspapers don't do as many of the routine stories as they used to.
Reporters, and editors, don't miss them.
Maybe it's because we're all so consumed by candidate putdowns of small-town Americans and fibs about sniper fire, but April 15 doesn't seem to be generating the rush of activity and anxiety that it once did.
It used to be, April 15 brought extended post office schedules and lines of people and cars as last-minute filers played beat the clock in the day's waning hours. It seemed to be a tax-day ritual to save until the last day the completing of paperwork and stuffing it in a big envelope. And every year, whichever newspaper I was at would publish the same annual stories, first of how busy accountants were and later how frantic tax filers were as midnight on April 16 approached.
Now, mostly because of electronic filing and this year with the promise of economic stimulus checks, there just doesn't seem to be the same kind of rush at the finish. And newspapers don't do as many of the routine stories as they used to.
Reporters, and editors, don't miss them.
