CAROL STREAM, IL — Have you filed your taxes yet? If not, the Postal Service is here to help. Across the country, postal employees are ready to provide last-minute relief to millions of taxpayers.
The deadline this year to file is Monday, April 18. It was moved from April 15 because of the observance of Emancipation Day, a Washington DC holiday.
Because many customers file electronically, all retail locations in Northern Illinois will maintain their normal business hours. For details on services and hours for Post Offices throughout Northern Illinois, please call 1-800-ASK-USPS (275-8777) or go to www.usps.com to locate a Post Office.
New prices for mailing letters, cards, oversized envelopes and packages will take effect on Sunday, April 18, 2011. Although the cost to mail a one ounce First Class letter is still 44 cents, the cost to mail a letter weighing an additional ounce will increase from 17 cents to 20 cents.
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) will not accept mail arriving postage due. The IRS will accept mail with additional First Class stamp in lieu of twenty cents in additional postage.
For last minute tax filers, Automated Postal Centers (APC) make mailing and shipping easy and they are available 24/7 at select Post Offices.
The following Post Offices have an Automated Postal Center Available 24/7
- Algonquin
- Arlington Heights
- Belvidere
- Bloomingdale
- Buffalo Grove
- Carol Stream
- Cary
- Crystal Lake
- Deerfield
- DeKalb
- Des Plaines
- Elgin-Westside
- Elk Grove Village
- Elmhurst
- Glen Ellyn
- Glenview
- Grayslake
- Gurnee
- Highland Park
- Hoffman Estates
- Itasca
- Lake Zurich
- McHenry
- Mt. Prospect
- Mundelein
- Northbrook
- Palatine
- Park Ridge
- Prospect Heights
- Rockford/Loves Park
- Rockford Main
- Rolling Meadows
- Round Lake
- Roselle
- Schaumburg
- Vernon Hills
- Villa Park
- Wheaton
- Wheaton-Danada
- Wilmette
- Winnetka
- Woodfield Station
- St Charles
- St Charles Eastside
- Libertyville
- Woodstock
Automated Postal Centers (APC) provide many of the products and services available at a Post Office retail window including booklets of First Class stamps, certified mail with return receipt, and delivery confirmation. Using debit and credit cards, APCs enable customers to weigh and mail letters and parcels. Next to the APC is a collection box for depositing these items. For tax filers, an April 18 date stamp/postmark will be provided if the mail is deposited by the last pickup time posted on the Automated Postal Center on April 18. Certified/Return Receipt service is also available.
Tax mailing tips:
- Taxpayers are urged to avoid the typical errors made when mailing their returns this year, which are: unsigned forms, not enough postage and depositing returns in collection boxes whose pickup time is past.
- Use pre-addressed labels where possible. Write clearly. Take special care to ensure that handwritten envelopes are legible. Include a return address.
- Use First-Class postage --The Internal Revenue Service recognizes the First-Class letter postmark as proof a return was mailed on time.
- Affix sufficient postage. One ounce is 44 cents; 20 cents for each additional ounce--2 oz. 64 cents; 3 oz 84 cents. Weigh any return that feels heavier than one ounce.
- Rule of thumb: up to 5 sheets of 20-lb. paper in a #10 envelope equals one ounce.
- The IRS does not accept postage due mail even if it has the April 18 postmark; tax returns bearing insufficient postage will be returned—meaning taxpayers will be penalized for filing late tax returns.
- For customers who send original receipts to tax agencies, certified or registered mail is a good choice.
- Make certain bulky envelopes are securely sealed.
- Postal regulations require that stamped tax returns weighing 13 oz. or more must be mailed at a post office. They cannot be mailed in a collection box.
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Please Note: For broadcast quality video and audio, photo stills and other media resources, visit the USPS Newsroom at www.usps.com/communications/newsroom/welcome.htm.
A self-supporting government enterprise, the U.S. Postal Service is the only delivery service that reaches every address in the nation, 150 million residences, businesses and Post Office Boxes. The Postal Service receives no tax dollars for operating expenses, and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to fund its operations. With 32,000 retail locations and the most frequently visited website in the federal government, usps.com, the Postal Service has annual revenue of more than $67 billion and delivers nearly 40 percent of the world’s mail. If it were a private sector company, the U.S. Postal Service would rank 29th in the 2010 Fortune 500. Black Enterprise and Hispanic Business magazines ranked the Postal Service as a leader in workforce diversity. The Postal Service has been named the Most Trusted Government Agency six consecutive years and the sixth Most Trusted Business in the nation by the Ponemon Institute.
