Tuesday was a dark day at the Internal Revenue Service. Literally.
The tax agency's downtown Washington, D.C., headquarters was among buildings in the national capital hit by a blackout. The White House also was affected, along with many of the city's popular museums and some Maryland suburbs, including the University of Maryland in College Park.
The National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., goes dark.
Generators kicked in for many offices, but not at the IRS. Unable to work, the tax HQ closed early yesterday afternoon.
The good news is that the outage did not affect any tax processing or tax return filing operations, a spokesman said.
The cause reportedly was a piece of metal that broke loose from a power line 43 miles southeast of the District of Columbia.
Don't wait too late to file: While there were no major tax implications, the power outage is a good reminder for us all to make backups of our important online material, tax and otherwise.
It also points out why you shouldn't wait until 11:59 p.m. local time on April 15 to electronically file your Form 1040. If there's a problem transmitting your return, it could push you into a late-filing situation.
Sure, one day late won't add that much of a penalty to your taxes. But why take any chances.
So if you are waiting until the last minute to file, that's fine. I'm a tax procrastinator myself.
But don't wait until the very last minute.
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