Anyone ever wonder why the postage isn't paid on those IRS envelopes?

[bushmeister0]

I was just sending my return off this morning and I had to scramble to find a stamp somewhere and I was really getting torked off that my return might not get sent out today cuz I couldn't find a damn stamp and then it dawned on me: Why the hell am I paying 42 cents to send this thing in the first place?

I don't pay postage for Netflix, I don't pay postage when I renew my Newsweek or Economist subscriptions, so why the IRS? What, are they broke or something?

It's mail going to a government agency carried there by another government agency, albiet a semi-governmental sort of . . . um . . . whatever the USPS is now. Still, what gives?

[Urban Prairie]

1. The IRS and the USPS

Are the only money-making entities the feds still have, now that they have drained SS. The USPS is supposed to allegedly break even, but the feds suck funds out of them as well.

[Thothmes]

16. Use to be that the U.S.Forest Service was a money maker

for the Federal Government. That was years ago, don't know about now though.

[lldu]

2. They want your DNA.......NT

[bushmeister0]

3. That thought did occure. I used a sponge.

Drink my dishwater, men in black!

[Lasher]

6. I had to clean up some cat pee and used the damp cloth.

I wonder if they think I'm Catwoman?

[Blue Dog Dominion]

17. I'm gonna pinch a loaf before sending my return in.

I hope they enjoy the smell.

[drmeow]

4. You have to put postage when you pay your bills

If the IRS should provide stamped envelopes, so should your credit card companies, mortgage company, utilities company, etc.

Its not like being carried from you to the IRS by the US mail doesn't cost the US mail anything.

My question is why can't I submit electronically without having to pay someone to do it for me? (Or has that finally changed?)

[HERVEPA]

7. AGI < 56000 you can do it for free with a number of companies

[bushmeister0]

10. Now you tell me!

The IRS website was a little vague about the whole issue, sort of kept guiding me towards the pay services. Perhaps, this is something else that will change in the next four years, too.

[bushmeister0]

8. I went to irs.gov yesterday to see and you still get sent to a private site.

Bastards!

[Muttocracy]

15. yeah, I'm still not willing to register my tax returns with a private company. nt

[The Wielding Truth]

5. Only US dept. not broken and you want it for free? ah ?naaah.

[bushmeister0]

9. If they really went after all those tax cheats who've been getting away with

stashing their ill gotten gains in offshore banks these past four years they could use of a fraction of that to pay for our postage.

Or they could stop shilling for turbotax and h&r block and set up their own free online tax service.

[Gormy Cuss]

11. It's actually a good question. Members of Congress send mail without postage

under their franking privileges and soldiers in war zones sometimes have free franking too. The IRS doesn't charge for the printed schedules or instructions nor does it charge an e-file fee or a paper processing fee. The cost of postage is trivial compared to those costs, yet it's a long standing tradition to have the taxpayer add the stamps. At some point there must have been a justification for it made in the regulations. Now I'm curious.

[Buns_of_Fire]

14. Up until the USPS started "returning to sender" mail with insufficient postage,

miscreants like me would send my checks to the IRS and the like "postage due" (as in, "forgetting" to put a stamp on it). Time was, they'd even return your check if you "forgot" to sign it.

Ah, those were the days. (And we liked it that way!)

[Silver Swan]

12. I worked for a large government agency.

We sent postage paid envelopes when the person was not legally obligated to furnish the information--such as some evidence requested from a third party.

If the individual was obligated to furnish the information, we were supposed to send an envelope that required them to add a stamp.

[Urban Prairie]

13. Bulk Mailers

Get huge discounts from the USPS based on volume and how finely they presort their mail (down to the carriers' actual route delivery). But in reality, the mail that they presort for discounts gets UNSORTED at the USPS mail processing centers all over the US, so that gets mixed in the mailstream with all of the other bulk (junk) and first class mail. The furthest sortation actually necessary is to the 5 digit zip code only.