This is mainly a heads-up to fellow FWers to be sure that your late April 15 letters have been correctly postmarked.


Like many other cities, we have a service at our post office that allows for mail to be postmarked April 15 right up until 11:59 pm. Here, it seems like it would be almost impossible to screw up: there is one big blue mailbox, with a huge sign on it indicating that "anything" in this box before 12 midnight would get the April 15 postmark.

I dropped off three IRA 2004 contributions at 10:30 pm in said box. This morning, I get a call from our brokerage branch saying that sure enough, the envelope is actually dated April 16. (It's a Scottrade business reply envelope--not that that should make any difference.) Reasonably enough, Scottrade tells me I'm screwed--no 2004 contribution for you unless the PO can correct this, but don't hold your breath.

I've got a call into the PO branch, where the CSR was polite, but said he "had to get back to me" after making a few calls.


(Clearly, not waiting until late April 15 would have avoided this problem. I've never done this at the last minute before, so don't have any experience either way with this problem. For us, the problem was that this year, we literally didn't get the info we needed about how our tax levels (and thus our Saver's tax credit cutoffs) would fall until April 15.)


If anyone can report any favorable experiences dealing with USPS on this matter, I'd welcome the feedback. In any case, I hope no one else had a similar experience this year.


Update 5/4/05: I just confirmed that all 3 IRA contributions were correctly posted, 2 at Ameritrade one at Scottrade. What they ultimately needed was a CYA from the post office, which our USPS branch manager ended up providing once he vetted it with USPS legal. Ended up taking me probably 6-8 hours of hassle, but at least it wasn't wasted. Thanks to all who replied.

It is unfortunate that this happens, I am sure you are not the only one.

Something similiar to me happened about 10 years ago when I used to administer IRAs. I had to return a prior year contribution to an accountholder because the postmark was the 16th, instead of the 15th, just like you. I had one unhappy customer and she clearly took the situation out on me! This was a tradional IRA contribution and she deducted the contribution on her tax return, therefore since the contribution was not allowed, she had to amend her return and either had to pay more tax or get a reduced refund. It was a mess. Quite a domino effect. Apparenlty when she arrived at the PO there were 2 boxes, one for tax returns and the other for other mail. Since her IRA contribution was not her tax return she put it on the 'other' box. So the PO probably processed only the mail in the box labeled for tax returns that night and dealt with the other mail after the 15th. Not sure what happened to you Dave since you clearly put your Scottrade envelopes in the correctly labeled box, unless the PO pulled out only the IRS and state returns and ignored the other envelopes.

I suspect you wont get a good answer from the PO. It is unfortunate that someone did not just process the mail correctly or this would not have been an issue. I also suspect they will not correct anything. Would be interested to hear any response you get.

Thanks for the warning and the heads up.
I too went to the PO on the 15th because I was trying to meet a deadline for my flexible speding account for my medical expenses. I was really AR about it. I waited in line and paid my postage. In addition I also had them hand stamp it and they gave me a receipt that proves I mailed

I always end up mailing my tax return at the last minute, but luckily this has never happened to me.

But I'm always afraid of something like this. That is the reason why I always phone in for an extension a week or so before the due date. It doesn't cost anything and saves you from the worst part of the penalty. The late filing penalty is 10 times the late payment penalty and having an extension excuses you from the late filing penalty for a few months.

I realize that's no help with your IRA problem since there are no extensions for that. I always end up making my contribution online at the Vanguard web site at the last minute instead of mailing.

I dunno........I recall hearing something like this on a call-in radio show with an IRS rep, and he chuckled and said something like "come on, do you really think we're going to look at every postmark date on the millions of pieces of mail arriving April 16-20?"

did you send it with delivery confirmation Dave? If so, you can perhaps look at the delivery confirmation date when it was first scan. Maybe it could have been scanned before 12:00 AM that day.

You should file a complaint at the USPS website, and contact a local TV station consumer affairs reporter if so inclined. Unless there was some sign stating that only tax returns would be given 4/15 postmarks, they've got some serious answering to do.

I'm still waiting to have the contribution get accepted (or denied) by Ameritrade. If they accept them, I probably won't bother to fight for the Scottrade Coverdell contribution. If not, it's a big enough deal to raise cain over.

I did hear back from the mailman, who says "district" says only IRS stuff would get the late postmark. That's crap: it isn't what was advertised or labeled on the mailboxes.

I will update when I hear more.

DaveHanson said:
I did hear back from the mailman, who says "district" says only IRS stuff would get the late postmark. That's crap: it isn't what was advertised or labeled on the mailboxes. yeah that is BS..DH i wish you luck.

Question to FW community: Has anyone successfully had the Postmaster have something "back postmarked??"

Thanks for the helpful and supportive replies. Happily, I can finally report that this has been resolved to our satisfaction.

We spent almost 3 hours with our USPS branch manager on Friday. He retrieved the original posted sign, which, sure enough, said "All mail deposited before midnight will be postmarked April 15." He also was cool enough to observe that had I been lying about the time I arrived at the PO box (which of course, he couldn't verify either way), I wouldn't have recalled details about the sign, which was taken down shortly after midnight when the box was retrieved. And on THAT basis, he agreed that he was satisfied that the contribution was actually made before midnight.

On that basis, he wrote a letter which didn't admit fault, but did say that despite the the sign and the timelieness of my contribution, the mail in question "was not postmarked until April 16." And that was enough for both the Ameritrade and Scottrade people to reverse themselves and make the contribution.


Thanks is due to the excellent CSR from Ameritrade, who got on speaker with us and the manger Friday and walked us through exactly what would and wouldn't be acceptable in the CYA letter from USPS. Thanks is also due to the USPS branch manager. He didn't write the sign, and he conceded that ideally, he should have looked at it more closely. I'm hoping that a happy benefit of all this is that next year, they AT LEAST correct the sign! I'll have to run up to the PO box next April 15 to be sure...but you can't bet it won't be to mail a last minute IRA contribution, LOL.

Dave,

FYI Scottrade allows you to fund your IRA electronically(except initial funding). Glad you took care of everything.