A Day For Protesters And Procrastinators Last-Minute Taxpayers File To Post Office

David Evans says his tax returns have been sitting in his car for a week.

Franklin Vanderweerd says he usually files his returns a month ahead but he just didn’t get the forms he needed until the last minute this year.

Whatever their reasons, scores of North Idaho residents lined up at post offices and tax-preparation centers Wednesday in a harried April 15 ritual to get their tax returns in the mail by midnight.

“If I’m sending money, I’m waiting till the last day,” Hayden Lake resident Arthur Halverson said as he filled out a certified mail sticker for his returns at the Coeur d’Alene post office.

At the H & R Block tax preparation center in Coeur d’Alene, more than 100 people stopped by Wednesday to pick up their completed returns, manager Linda Furia said. Each paid anywhere from $20 to $600 depending on the complexity of their taxes, Furia said. Tax preparers there accepted new customers until 7:30 p.m.

“It’s been a pretty steady, busy day,” said Furia, who was working on four tax returns late Wednesday afternoon.

There’s a place for all those tax preparers and last-minute filers to drown their sorrows in a cup of coffee and a doughnut.

“The point to remember is what the government gives it must first take away,” reads the message board outside Davis Donuts in Coeur d’Alene.

Workers at the 24-hour donut shop change the reader board every Wednesday and Sunday, and for the last several weeks just about every message has been about taxes.

“It makes them think,” said Carolyn Browne, who has worked at the shop for eight years. “The object of it is to make them think.”

And the customers say the messages do just that.

“We’re spending a lot of money just to get our own money back,” said Bob Banta Jr., as he finished a cup of coffee with his dad.

In Spokane, the annual last-minute dash to get an envelope to the IRS brought long lines of cars, vans and trucks to the U.S. Postal Service’s Terminal Annex Wednesday evening.

Those lines of taxpayers idling in each others’ exhaust fumes drew protesters with picket signs and petitions, as well as a congressman looking for a good backdrop for a television interview.

U.S. Rep. George Nethercutt signed a petition of the National Federation of Independent Businesses to simplify the federal tax code by the year 2001. The group doesn’t specify a particular change, only that a new system be fairer, easier to understand and good for the economy.

Signing was an easy decision for Nethercutt because he’s a co-sponsor of the bill that would do just that.

Nethercutt reiterated tax talk he made around Spokane on Wednesday, saying the nation’s tax code is too complicated, and the bureaucracy too large. He acknowledged that some of this year’s complexity was a result of changes in the tax law that he voted for, such as the cut in capital gains taxes.

“The choice is sometimes between tax relief with (complicated) specifications or no tax relief at all,” he said. “I’ll take tax relief every time.”

As Nethercutt conducted interviews, members of the business federation collected signatures on petitions they hope to dump on the steps of Congress later this year. Nearby, members of the Libertarian Party handed out “Million Dollar Bills”- fliers that criticized the federal government for spending $1 million every five seconds.

Frank Grigaliunas, the Libertarians’ Spokane County chairman, said party members brought about 2,000 of the brochures to the terminal annex, anticipating a big crowd.

“We’re looking for whatever opportunities we can find to publicize the party,” he said.

Grigaliunas stood next to a member of the John Birch Society, who had put up a sign calling for President Clinton’s impeachment and was handing out copies of that group’s bulletin.

The income tax shouldn’t be replaced with a flatter tax, but with no tax, said the bulletin, which also criticized Nethercutt for voting “wrong” on seven of eight spending bills. That is, he voted to spend money on such things as foreign aid, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the Small Business Administration and Legal Services Corporation.

Down the block, another protester carried a sign calling for the income tax to be replaced with a national sales tax.