
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, April 16, 1995                   TAG: 9504170086
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

LATE FILING MAY BE A TAXPAYER TRADITION

A two-day reprieve may have taken the pressure off some people who are waiting until the last minute to file their tax returns, but Saturday was hardly a day off for Roanoke Valley tax preparers.

"It's been a steady flow," said Joel Lytton, district manager of H&R Block in Roanoke. "It's generally the same people we see this time every year - the procrastinators. Or maybe they feel like it's a tradition to just wait until the last day."

Because April 15 fell on Saturday this year, the Internal Revenue Service delayed the filing deadline for federal tax returns until midnight Monday, April 17. State tax returns are still due May 1.

Some people who didn't hear about the extension found themselves rushing to meet a deadline that didn't exist.

"For some reason, just about everyone who has come in today thought it was the deadline," said Larry Puckett, owner of the Jackson Hewitt Tax Service at Valley View Mall. "You can put their mind at ease when you say it's not until Monday."

Other taxpayers seem content to wait until the very last minute.

Figures provided by the Internal Revenue Service district office in Richmond show that more Virginians than usual are waiting until the last week to file. More than a third of the state's taxpayers, about 1.1 million, had not filed as of last Wednesday - about 200,000 more than usual.

Harold Shaffer, who runs The Tax Man on Peters Creek Road, said his office has received numerous calls from people who just wanted to make sure the deadline for federal returns was not until Monday.

"If you had an extra four days instead of two, you'd still have people putting it off," he said.

But with the deadline coming so close to a holiday weekend, "we've had a lot of people who wanted to get theirs done early this year," said Steven Bahr, a certified public accountant in Salem.

Some tax preparers were planning to keep their offices open today to accommodate last-minute filers, and many predicted the traditional late-night run on the post office Monday, as the midnight deadline approaches, would take place as usual.

Some information in this story came from the Associated Press.

by CNB