I know…everyone already knows that the mail is slow. What is new is that the US postal service has changed the way it applies the postmark to each piece of mail. Instead of postmarking items at the individual branch on the day they were mailed, the USPS has started delaying the application of the postmark until items reach a centralized processing center. Depending on your location, this could mean that your mail doesn’t get postmarked until one or two days after you mail it.

This is a problem if you are trying to mail something to the IRS.

The IRS technically considers a form to be filed and/or a payment to be received upon the date the item is placed in possession of the postal service, aka “the postmark date”. If you got the item into the current day’s mail, it used to be postmarked that day. This is no longer the case.

Even though so very many things can be filed and paid electronically, there are still occasions where something must be filed on paper. What should you do if you have to entrust an IRS filing to the USPS? Well, here are a couple of ideas:

• Ensure you have applied sufficient postage
• Send your IRS document using certified mail (for proof of mailing date)
• Take your IRS document to the window to have the postmark stamped manually
• Mail your IRS document very early so it arrives timely
• All of the above

Document everything you can, file as early as you can, and maybe…I dunno…burn a Forever stamp as a sacrifice to Postmaster General Steiner?