A few hours before the midnight Monday deadline, Althea Dease, 32, was outside the main Cincinnati post office with her 6-year-old son Alex waiting for her husband to pick her up after mailing her forms.
"We usually wait until late because we have to pay," she said. "This year, we are actually getting something back, but we didn't know it until just recently."
Temple University student Andrew Basenfelder asked frantically for a calculator as he worked on his return at a table in the center of a Philadelphia post office.
"Basically, I just put it off," he said.
New York City's central post office in Manhattan took on a carnival atmosphere as late filers mingled with police officers, protesters and partially clothed actors promoting a nude musical revue in Greenwich Village.
Dozens of activists declaimed corporate tax cuts and the U.S. war effort in Afghanistan while pitchmen handed out free samples of soft drinks and other products.
Breakdancers and a man in a Santa Claus costume promoted a radio station outside a Philadelphia post office. Another man dressed as "Star Wars" villain Darth Vader protested military spending by waving a light saber at passers-by. A 64-year-old woman held a sign that read "Raging Grannies Against Corporate Welfare."
"I didn't know it was going to be this crazy," said Rita Wissert, 27, who waited for her boyfriend outside the post office. "This is insane."
In Las Vegas, casino food server Toni Mitchell joined tax resister and author Irwin Schiff at a protest on the steps of the federal courthouse. She brought her bulldog Emeril, who wore a T-shirt bearing the words "Tax Freedom ... Irwin Schiff."
"Americans are uninformed about paying income tax," said Mitchell, 29.
In Cincinnati, a radio station invited people outside the main post office to take out their stress on a vehicle nicknamed "the Tax Dodge." They could hit the car with a sledgehammer for $1, with the money going to charity.
The White House budget office estimates that Americans spent 1.5 billion hours on federal paperwork last year -- 80 percent of it dealing with tax forms. The 122 pages with the standard 1040 form is triple the number in 1975.
The National Taxpayers Union said keeping records and then preparing the 1040 form with common schedules takes an average of 28 hours, six minutes -- an increase of more than an hour over last year and 40 percent more time-consuming than in 1997.
Fresh from root canal surgery, part-time college student Samuel Gordon held his jaw as he worked his way through a pile of tax papers piled before him at a Philadelphia post office.
"My lips still feel numb," Gordon said. "And I don't like taxes."
In New York, former Parks & Recreation Commissioner Henry Stern combed through his returns as he sat on a bench in his shirt sleeves outside an Internal Revenue Service building.
"You walk away with a great feeling of relief," he said after handing in his forms. "You're relieved of your money and you're relieved that your obligation is fulfilled, at least for this year."
http://accesswdun.com/article/2002/4/195994