Apr 18, 2017

Jacob Tierney | Monday, April 17, 2017, 11:00 p.m. Dan Speicher | Tribune-Review Accountant Erin Rupert, works on finishing up her last three clients tax returns, as tax day looms near, inside her office at Delhi, Keenan and Associates Inc., in Greensburg, on Monday, April 17, 2017. Dan Speicher | Tribune-Review Accountant Erin Rupert, works on finishing up her last three clients tax returns, as tax day looms near, inside her office at Delhi, Keenan and Associates Inc., in Greensburg, on Monday, April 17, 2017. Dan Speicher | Tribune-Review Accountant Erin Rupert, works on finishing up her last three clients tax returns, as tax day looms near, inside her office at Delhi, Keenan and Associates Inc., in Greensburg, on Monday, April 17, 2017. Sign up for one of our email newsletters. Updated 1 hour ago Western Pennsylvania's tax preparers know what to expect every April. “They've all been hectic, and this year is no different,” said Dave Delisi, a partner at Greensburg accounting firm Delisi, Keenan & Associates. Tuesday is the federal tax deadline, and Delisi and other tax professionals have been burning the midnight oil, finishing tax returns for last-minute filers — 40 million of them. “It's a big, huge, chaotic mess,” said Dana Rudi, a 20-year tax accounting veteran who manages the Jackson Hewitt tax center in Hempfield. That's not unusual, Rudi said. And she's used to it. A tradition that has gone by the wayside is for some post offices to stay open late on Tax Day to service late filers. This year, all of Western Pennsylvania's post offices will stick to their regular hours, according to the postal service. Traditional “snail mail” has fallen out of favor for tax filers with the rise of the internet. The IRS received about 152.5 million tax returns last year, 87 percent of them filed electronically. Although the internet makes it easier for people to do their taxes, about 56 percent of people who filed electronically in 2016 got help from a tax professional, according to the IRS. Some tax preparers will accept walk-ins until the final hours. “We don't turn anybody down. We'll stay until midnight on the deadline to make sure we've got everybody out,” said Mary Jo Armstrong, owner of the Liberty Tax Services franchise in Natrona Heights. According to the IRS, 40 million taxpayers had yet to file their tax returns as of Thursday. The agency expects 12 million returns to be filed this week. Armstrong kept her business open on Easter to serve last-minute filers, and her door chimed every few minutes Monday as new clients stopped in. The day before the deadline is her busiest of the tax season. About 15 percent of her customers file their taxes in the final week, she said. Delisi's deadline is a bit less frantic, by design. He estimated that 5 percent to 10 percent of his clients file in the final week, in many cases because of extenuating circumstances rather than procrastination. The relatively low number is largely because his firm takes a proactive approach, he said. “We reach out to them throughout the season, trying to get them to bring things in,” he said. His firm won't file returns for last-minute walk-ins, although he will help them request an extension. “We want to do the returns correctly,” he said. Taxpayers got a few extra days to file this year. The traditional April 15 filing deadline was delayed because of the Easter holiday. “There were a lot of people who didn't even know that it was due tomorrow,” Rudi said. “They still thought it was due the 15th.” This meant tax preparers had a few extra days to work. “It kind of helps whenever the deadline is extended a little bit, because usually on the 14th we're just slammed, and (the extension) kind of spreads it out,” Armstrong said. Jacob Tierney is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach him at 724-836-6646 or jtierney@tribweb.com .