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Tax Deadline Canada

April 15, 2012 by · Comments Off on Tax Deadline Canada 

Tax Deadline Canada, This month’s income tax deadline day can not only be stressful for those who have left filing their return to the last minute, but it can also be deadly.  A 30-year study of traffic accidents in the United States has found that the country’s mid-April tax deadline day is associated with an elevated risk of fatal crashes.

Using data for fatal vehicle crashes for every April 15 over the last three decades, the study found that Americans have a six per cent increased risk of dying on tax day — and a similar risk likely occurs on Canada’s tax deadline day, April 30, researchers say.

“We find about the same increase in risk both during the morning hours, the afternoon hours and the evening hours,” said lead researcher Dr. Donald Redelmeier, an internal medicine specialist at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto.

“So it’s not all confined to the 11th hour, right before the stroke of midnight. But it prevails for the full day.”

That differs from Super Bowl Sunday — another event Redelmeier has studied.

His 2003 analysis of traffic deaths on the day of the hugely popular televised National Football League showdown found a 41 per cent increased risk in the average number of road fatalities over a 27-year period.

But Super Bowl Sunday traffic deaths occurred primarily within three hours following the game’s completion — not throughout 24 hours, as is the case for tax-filing day.

Redelmeier, who is often called on to treat victims of vehicle crashes at Sunnybrook’s regional trauma centre, said the increased risk on U.S. tax day translates into about 13 deaths per year.

“None of these people had to die … Road trauma destroys the lives of thousands of people in the United States each year,” as it does in Canada, he said.

“And driver error contributes to about 93 per cent of such events.”

The study, published in this week’s issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, used tax day road fatalities as a marker for what high stress can do to driver behaviour on any day of the year, anywhere in the world.

“Stress is often speculated as a contributing factor in driver error, and yet stress is almost impossible to study in a scientific manner,” Redelmeier said. “Here, we were trying to pull out one particular form of stress.”

He said the largest jumps in risk for fatal crashes on tax deadline day occurred during the last two decades, despite the advent of electronic tax filing during that period.

“So that we don’t think that what’s going on here is increased amounts of driving … like the proverbial rushing to the post office at the stroke before midnight. We don’t think that that’s the largest factor here.”

Ironically, he said, electronic filing may encourage more people to leave tax-return preparation to the last minute.

Tax Deadline 2012

April 13, 2012 by · Comments Off on Tax Deadline 2012 

Tax Deadline 2012, The regular April 15 deadline falls on a Sunday, so that’s not happening. Monday, April 16 is a holiday in the District of Columbia, so the deadline is Tuesday, April 17.

Now in the final stretch of the 2012 tax filing season, the Internal Revenue Service reminds taxpayers that they can get last-minute tips by following the IRS on Twitter.

The IRS Twitter news feed, @IRSnews, provides the latest federal tax news and information for taxpayers. The focus of the IRS Twitter messages is on easy-to-use information, including tax tips, tax law changes, and important IRS programs such as e-file, getting a filing extension and “Where’s My Refund.”

The IRS plans a special series of tweets in English and Spanish as the April 17 tax deadline approaches.

Anyone with a Twitter account can follow @IRSnews by going to http://twitter.com/IRSnews. Taxpayers can also follow the IRS Twitter news feed using IRS2Go, a free smartphone application available for Apple and Android devices.

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