Still haven't done your taxes? Take the weekend off. Taxes aren't due until April 18 this year

IRS.gov

All you tax procrastinators dreading this weekend: I'm about to give you some good news. You can procrastinate for one more weekend! Tax filing date is NOT April 15 this year. It's Monday, April 18. Really.

Perhaps I shouldn't have said anything. After all, thanks to the tax ID theft epidemic, it's actually better to file your taxes as soon as possible. And that makes sense if you are expecting a refund, too. But, on the off chance that you have a good reason for filing late, you now have permission to take the weekend off and work on your taxes all next week.

Has the IRS gone soft? Despite staff being ravaged, leading to huge phone call wait times, no, that's not it.

April 15 is a holiday this year. At least in Washington D.C. As a result, since tax day can't be on a holiday, "April 15" has become April 18 this year.

What holiday, you ask? Emancipation Day. That's normally on April 16, but since that's a Saturday, Emancipation Day is being celebrated on Friday. That leads to the do-si-do which lands Tax Aay on April 18. And to make it even more complicated, April 18 is also a holiday for some folks. Patriots Day is celebrated on April 18 in Maine and Massachusetts. That means for those folks (and only those folks!) taxes aren't actually due until Tuesday, April 19.

Got that? Of course, you're still better off filing sooner rather than later.

And oh, what's Emancipation Day? If you don't know, you should. It commemorates the date in 1862 that President Abraham Lincoln "freed" the slaves....in Washington D.C. (Slave owners were paid for their release.) Nine months later, Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation applied to the rest of the country. The date was made a legal D.C. holiday in 2005

Folks who make estimated tax payments also get the extra weekend to pay Uncle Sam.

You're welcome. Or not.

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