Tax Day falls on Tuesday, April 18, this year. And for those who haven’t filed yet and end up owing money to the government, have you considered paying in cash?
It may not be the first option many people would choose, but it is possible, if not challenging.
Jay Zagorsky, a professor at Boston University’s Questrom School of Business, did just that this year. He joined “Marketplace’s” Kai Ryssdal to talk about the obstacles he encountered in paying the IRS in physical currency and the reasons we might want cash to be a more accessible option. An edited transcript of their conversation is below.
Kai Ryssdal: You wanted to pay your taxes in cash. My question, sir, is why?
Jay Zagorsky: Why? Well, first, Kai, I teach students about money. And I always ask them to look at the front of their bills. And on the front of the bills, it states: This note is legal tender for all debts, public and private. And income tax is one of our biggest public debts. And for years, I was wondering: Was it even possible to pay in cash? Because I’ve never heard of anyone who had paid in cash. And a couple of years ago, one of my students said, “Professor, I actually found it on the IRS website.”
Ryssdal: Sorry, like instructions for how to pay in cash?
Zagorsky: Instructions on the IRS website for how to pay in cash.
Ryssdal: So you cannot simply walk into the local IRS office and hand them, you know, $452.97 and be done with it?
Zagorsky: No. As a matter of fact, first, you have to make an appointment. And the lady I talked to said that I was very lucky that there were some appointments in my local office here in Boston available before Tax Day and that many of our other offices were booked all the way up to May. So if I had waited a little bit longer, I couldn’t pay in some other parts of the country in cash. After I made an appointment, I went down to the federal building — took a little while to get in because it’s pretty high security at the federal building. And then I sat there, and after about 30 minutes, they came up and they apologized. And they said, “We cannot keep cash in this facility because it’s not safe,” which I found a little bit ironic given how much effort it took to actually get into the federal building. And they said they needed to schedule a courier. I showed up a week later, and it took about 30 minutes for them to accept my cash. And they filled in what appeared to be a four-part carbon form, so the IRS has not yet automated this part of their business. And let me say, Kai, I was not trying to be a pain in any way, shape or form. There are stories on the internet of people bringing wheelbarrows full of coins. I went to the bank, I got crisp $100 bills, exact change. I wanted to make the experience go as fast as possible.
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