TENNESSEE DISTRICT — With Tax Day only a week away, the United States Postal Service is reminding filers to pay special attention to Post Office retail hours and collection box pick-up times.

Post Offices in Tennessee and Northern Georgia will be open regular business hours on Tuesday, April 15. Post Office, Self-Service Kiosks and collection box location, hours, and pick-up time information is available at 1-800-ASK-USPS or online at www.usps.com.

Gone are the days when Americans waited until the last minute to mail tax returns with a trip to their local Post Office before midnight. Now the majority of taxpayers file online. According to the IRS, out of 146 million individual tax returns filed in 2013, almost 83 percent were e-filed.

Here are some filing tax tips:

• If depositing returns in a blue collection box on Tuesday, April 15, double-check the pick-up schedule on the label. To ensure getting the April 15th postmark, deposit returns before the last scheduled pick-up time.
• Affix the appropriate postage, especially since the item may weigh more than an ounce. The IRS will not pay postage due and your filings will be returned if there is insufficient postage. The post office says that about five pages of paper are an ounce, which would require one 49-cent stamp.
• Be sure and include a return address on the envelope. Short-paid items without a return address will be sent to the postal mail recovery office for determination of the sender, delaying its return.
• The USPS highly recommends getting the security of proof of mailing and proof of delivery of your tax returns -- use certified mail service with a return receipt, plus the applicable postage.
• Tax forms are no longer available at Post Offices. Check online at http://www.irs.gov/ (Federal forms), http://www.tn.gov/revenue/forms/ (TN forms) or https://etax.dor.ga.gov/ (GA forms).

Please remember that mail must be deposited before the last collection time at the post office or collection box on April 15 to receive an April 15th postmark.

The Postal Service does not receive tax dollars for operating expenses; it relies entirely on the sale of postage, products and services to fund its operations.

A self-supporting government enterprise, the U.S. Postal Service is the only delivery service that reaches every address in the nation: 152 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 more than 31,000 retail locations and the most frequently visited website in the federal government, usps.com, the Postal Service has annual revenue of more than $65 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 42nd in the 2012 Fortune 500. The Postal Service has been named the Most Trusted Government Agency for seven years and the fourth Most Trusted Business in the nation by the Ponemon Institute.

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