For Tax Preparers, Full Steam Ahead : Clock Ticks Away Toward Witching Hour on Monday

It’s the season for little sleep and a lot of takeout.

One owner of a tax-preparation firm didn’t crawl into bed until 4 a.m. one day this week, while one of his employees labored all through the night. Meals come in cartons, or not at all.

As Monday’s income tax deadline nears--2 days later this year, thanks to today’s being April 15--professional preparers of tax returns are spending long hours catering to the procrastinators of Orange County.

“These are people you told 3 months ago, and suddenly it hasn’t dawned on them until today to do it. And now they want it done now,” said Carol Aikins, an accountant with Debit One, a mobile tax and bookkeeping service.

Aikins drives a motor home decked out like an office, complete with computer, to her clients’ homes to prepare taxes. “It’s the best way. That way, they (the clients) have everything there,” she explained.

This week, she has worked until 11 each night, only to return to her office at 7 a.m.

“When you’re on the road, you grab a bite,” she said. “I come home famished.”

According to the Internal Revenue Service, Southern California is indeed the land of procrastinators.

So far, just a little over 50% of taxpayers in the region have filed their returns, compared to 56% or 57% nationwide. “Southern Californians are the biggest procrastinators in the country,” said Sally Ruhnau, a public affairs specialist with the Internal Revenue Service. Come Monday, she predicts, the IRS offices in Santa Ana and Laguna Niguel will be jammed with people asking for Form 4868--an application for extension to file a return. That too, must be stamped by midnight, April 17.

Ruhnau stressed that an extension to file does not equal an extension to pay. If taxes are owed, they must be estimated and a check included in order to avoid penalty, she said.

“It’s frantic, very frantic,” Steven H. Stevenson, a Tustin accountant, said of the final days. His whole family is affected by the tax-filing rush. His wife does clerical work and his two children, on spring break from school during the tax season, wind up spending several days doing chores in the office or playing games on the computers.

“We’re all overburdened and short on time,” said Hal Travis, owner of Triple Check Income Tax Service in Garden Grove, who worked until 4 a.m. one day this week. “Although I must say people are not breaking down the doors this last week or two,” he said, adding that it appears that slightly fewer people are using professional preparers this year.

Extension Forms

Jerry McGough, office manager for A. S. Rogers & Co. in Santa Ana, said his tax preparers are busy filing extension forms because of the complexities of their clients’ returns.

“Simplification (of the tax law) is not simple,” he said. “It has created a lot of new problems.” Many people are paying more to their surprise, he said.

Still, not everyone bemoans the tax season.

Alethea La Mar, district manager for H&R; Block, is happy to keep the doors open as late as needed. Several locations have stayed open until 11 p.m. this week, and they will be open all day Saturday and Sunday as well, she said.

“We’ve been waiting the last 3 months for this,” she said. “We were afraid people would try to do their own.” She said many do walk in at the last minute, frustrated after trying to decipher the tax instructions on their own.

“Most clients have tried their own and can’t do it,” she said.

The U.S. Postal Service, too, is gearing up for those who don’t want to pay Uncle Sam a day before they have to. Mail volume in Orange County is expected to swell by 200,000 pieces--up to 1.8 million--on Monday night, spokesman Joseph Breckenridge said.

Eight post offices in Orange County will be postmarking mail received on Monday until midnight. If possible, taxpayers should have their returns stamped and ready to go when they get to the post offices because traffic is expected to be heavy and parking scarce. However, one post office in Santa Ana will keep its counter open for service until 8 p.m., and three more will stay open until 10 p.m. In addition, the postal service will set up booths to receive and postmark mail until midnight at the Laguna Hills Mall, the Mall of Orange and Huntington Center Plaza.

But postal employees don’t mind the extra work, Breckenridge said.

“Actually, most folks enjoy the day. It’s fun. It’s different. We know it’s an important day,” he said. “Employees seem to get a bang out of it.”

That’s probably not how most accountants and tax preparers would describe tax season.

On top of having clients who wait until the last minute, some tax preparers also are suffering from slowly processed returns that are sent for final preparation to computer firms, which likewise can get backed up this time of year.

Unitax Electronic Printing Service, one of the nation’s biggest computer-service firms for accountants, got off to a bad start this tax season when new software was slow, according to Bob Lynch, vice president in the firm’s Anaheim office, one of 28 nationwide.

“In Southern California, we normally process 6,000, 7,000, 8,000 returns a day. By the software not working early in the season . . . it doesn’t take long for the backlog to get heavy,” Lynch said, adding that Unitax has since caught up and is now processing returns in 3 to 4 days.

But not all preparers are frantic these days.

Doug Hudelson of Hudelson & Alton, certified public accountants in Brea, said his firm is expected to finish up this week, and he was planning to leave work Friday to start a vacation.

“It’s been an excellent season. Everything went right,” he said. “The computers worked. The copy machines worked. Clients came in prepared.”

For tax preparers still toiling away, those long hours of staring at 1040 forms may work up an appetite, but there’s no time for a relaxing lunch.

“El Pollo Loco keeps pretty busy this time of year,” said McGough of A. S. Rogers.

Others said they are dining well, even if the food is packaged in Styrofoam or cardboard.

“We’re eating lots of cashew chicken,” said Gerald Glazer, who found a good Chinese restaurant not far from his Irvine office.

At H&R; Block in Santa Ana, the tax preparers put in their food orders when two workers from a nearby Denny’s came in to have their taxes done. The restaurant employees wound up taking lunch orders from the office crowd, and one drove off to pick up the food while his buddy had his taxes done, La Mar said.

“It’s just part of this crazy world of income tax,” she noted.

Others, though, are skipping meals entirely.

“Coffee and cigarettes is what you live on,” said Theresa Leeser, owner of the Tax Lady in Garden Grove. “It keeps you going.”

So does looking forward to April 18, tax preparers said.

Leeser takes no time off because she has other business clients who need to file payroll taxes and first-quarter sales taxes by April 30.

But others have celebrations planned. Aikins of Debit One must get everything wrapped up by 2 p.m. Monday to head down to San Diego for a Neil Diamond concert. Triple Check workers will break open champagne Monday afternoon while they wait for clients to come in and pick up their completed returns.

At H&R; Block offices, there are usually parties after the last return is completed.

“It’s like New Year’s Eve for us,” La Mar said.

Others have quieter celebrations.

Asked what he will do April 18, accountant Glazer replied: “Sleep.”