Tax day for the millions of people who filed for an extension back in April

Author: NPR Marketplace

Published: August 15, 2003

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CHERYL GLASER, anchor: Tax day again already? It is for the eight and a half million people who applied for an extension back in April. MARKETPLACE's Amy Scott looks at who's trying to put off the inevitable.

AMY SCOTT reporting: The Treasury's inspector general found that one million of those late filers earn more than 100 grand a year. In other words, it's probably not that they can't afford to pay on time. Len Burman co-directs the Urban Institute's Tax Policy Center. He says even he needed more time this year to sift through the evermore complicated forms, and he's a former tax analyst at the Treasury Department.

LEN BURMAN (Urban Institute's Tax Policy Center): People find tax preparation so daunting that they put it off till the last minute, and then they realize that they can't complete it on time.

SCOTT: One Washington-based CPA, John Haymaker, was busy this week preparing last-minute returns for today's deadline. He says about a quarter of his clients file for extensions. They often don't have all the necessary paperwork in time, but he says a lot of them just procrastinate. In Washington, I'm Amy Scott for MARKETPLACE.

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