NEW YORK — Procrastinators and protesters swarmed post offices across the country Monday as the tax-filing deadline loomed.
Temple University student Andrew Basenfelder asked frantically for a calculator as he worked on his return inside a Philadelphia post office.
"Basically, I just put it off," he said. Extension forms were in high demand nationwide.
New York City's central post office in Manhattan took on a carnival atmosphere as late filers mingled with police officers, protesters and partially clothed actors promoting a nude musical revue in Greenwich Village.
In Cincinnati, a radio station invited people outside the main post office to take out their stress on a vehicle nicknamed "the Tax Dodge." They could hit the car with a sledgehammer for $1, with the money going to charity.
A post office in Merrifield, Va., brought in an Asian elephant from the Ringling Bros. circus for a brief appearance to lighten taxpayers' spirits.
Lines coiled through a downtown Denver post office and out into the street. Filers sweated in the hot room and snapped at one another for being too slow in line or not being organized.
"No one ever wants to deal with taxes," said Nancy Pavlish, a bank employee. "It's just such a hassle."
Outside the federal courthouse in downtown Las Vegas, tax resister Irwin Schiff led a demonstration by about 30 people who argue the Constitution doesn't permit a federal income tax.
"We're being ripped off," Schiff proclaimed. "The government doesn't collect income tax, it extorts it."
The White House budget office estimates that Americans spent 1.5 billion hours on federal paperwork last year — 80 percent of it dealing with tax forms. The 122 pages with the standard 1040 form is triple the number in 1975.
The National Taxpayers Union said keeping records and then preparing the 1040 form with common schedules takes an average of 28 hours, six minutes — an increase of more than an hour over last year and 40 percent more time-consuming than in 1997.
Fresh from root canal surgery, part-time college student Samuel Gordon held his jaw as he worked his way through a pile of tax papers at a Philadelphia post office.
"My lips still feel numb," Gordon said. "And I don't like taxes."
In New York, former city parks commissioner Henry Stern combed through his returns as he sat on a bench in his shirt sleeves outside an Internal Revenue Service facility.
"You walk away with a great feeling of relief," he said after handing in his forms. "You're relieved of your money and you're relieved that your obligation is fulfilled, at least for this year."
