Why are Taxes Due on April 15?

Answer 1

Every tax payer knows their taxes are due on April 15th of each year unless that happens to fall on a Saturday or Sunday, in which case they are due the following Monday. Fewer know why taxes are due on this day. The answer to this question lies in a Constitutional Amendment and a few clever Congressmen.

The normal year runs from January 1 to December 31, but having taxes due on January 1 was cumbersome. This gave people almost no time to gather their receipts and determine their costs and income. It also means having to know income and outcome before the year had ended. So when the 16th Amendment gave Congress the right to levy taxes, they immediately knew they had to push the date back. Originally they decided to make taxes due on March 1. The Revenue Act of 1918 pushed the date back to March 15 to give people two extra weeks to file in this era of slower transportation of letters.

Then in 1955, Congress took the advice of officials in the Internal Revenue Service to push it back to April 15. This was done to give the IRS more time to fully process tax returns and perform proper audits. It also allowed them to hold on to refunds longer as they processed them later than those that owed the government money. The decision to hold on to these refunds for almost a month longer made the government incredible amounts of money by earning more interest on that money. It simultaneously gave those with huge tax debts a longer amount of time to come up with the money that they owe the government.

The history behind Tax Day is fairly simple but holds ramifications on everyone's lives. It is a day that many people dread but it at one point it came a month and a half earlier. Most people run their lives on a typical calendar year but the government works on a much different calendar that is based upon when taxes are going to be collected, how long they get to collect them, and when they will issue refunds.