How did April 15 come to be the day taxes are due?
What a timely question. We only hope you aren’t waiting for the answer before filing your return. We set out to research your question, not knowing how taxing it would prove. We started by typing “why april 15” (using the quotation marks for exact matches) into the Yahoo! search box. The search returned very few matches, most of which were not very helpful. However, we did find one web site that claimed the first income tax was paid only by the very wealthy, and they tended to spend their summers vacationing. Thus, the IRS Commissioner argued, “The collection of taxes would be much easier if an earlier assessment was made, before they leave town.” And so it was. This information made sense and explained the general time frame for the deadline but didn’t pinpoint why April 15 was chosen. After several searches on variations of “tax day or
