Mailing that last-minute return
(Tom Herde/Globe Staff/file 1997)
Patti Melchin, a postal worker, collected a tax return in 1997 from a motorist outside Fort Point Station. The same scene will play out tonight until midnight outside the 24-hour post office as procrastinators rush to make the tax deadline.
By Globe Staff
The increasing popularity of e-filing has eliminated one tax day tradition: post offices no longer have extended hours on April 15.
But that does not mean the United States Postal Service will not be working hard tonight to help procrastinators get their returns in the mail by midnight, said post office spokesman Bob Cannon.
Large post offices already stay open a little late in Woburn (6:30 p.m.); Worcester (6 p.m.); and Lowell and Lawrence (5:30 p.m.). At South Station in Boston, postal employees will be stamping mail in the lobby during the evening rush.
And for those that really push deadlines, there is Fort Point Station, the only post office in New England staffed 24 hours a day, seven days a week. To help accommodate tonight’s rush, postal workers will be out at the intersection of Dorchester Avenue and Summer Street collecting returns from drivers.
Inside Fort Point Station, tables will be set up in the lobby where postal workers and representatives from the Internal Revenue Service will assist last minute filers.
"People will show up with just their W2s," Cannon said, "And not much else."
Another option for last-minute filers in the Boston area: about a dozen automated postal centers, which, while unstaffed, are also open 24 hours a day. The centers can be found in several sections of Boston, as well as in Cambridge, Newton, Arlington, Waltham, Needham, Braintree, and Lexington.
