Mass. taxpayers get an extra day to file state taxes, but not federal returns
Every so often, Patriots’ Day would offer a reprieve for Massachusetts taxpayers who wanted some extra time to file. If the day, also known around here as Marathon Monday, fell on April 15, local taxpayers used to be guaranteed an extra day to file their federal taxes.
Not anymore. IRS spokeswoman Peggy Riley says that this unusual tradition has come to an end because the agency no longer processes paper returns at its local office in Andover. (That ended in 2009.) Now, the deadline for federal returns in Massachusetts is the same across the country: The returns have to be postmarked by the end of the day on April 15.
At least we get another day to file state taxes. A spokesman for the state Department of Revenue says the deadline for state returns has been moved to April 16 because Patriots’ Day falls on April 15 this year.
But there’s another holiday that could help the procrastinators out there in some years. They started celebrating Emancipation Day in the District of Columbia in 2005. When that coincides with the April 15 tax filing deadline, the deadline is pushed out a bit. In 2011, for example, Emancipation Day fell on Friday, April 15, so the federal tax deadline was extended to the following Monday, April 18. Because Tax Day was Marathon Monday that year, the state tax deadline was delayed even further, to Tuesday, April 19.