1. Taxpayers need the extra time to compile their records and fill out the tax forms.
2. The IRS needs more time to process returns efficiently. If the date were moved back to April 15, the IRS could rely more on permanent employees rather than hiring temporary help during the crunch. Perhaps so many taxpayers wouldn’t file at the deadline date if they had an extra month.
3. An extension would also ease the task of accountants and other tax preparers.
4. It would make it easier for people who have to estimate their tax payments for the next year to make an accurate assessment.
5. It would allow businesses who have audits at the end of the year time to concentrate on their IRS commitments.
The 1954 bill passed without much opposition. The April 15 date has proved to be workable, but it is no panacea. Any fantasy that most taxpayers wouldn’t procrastinate until the last minute was quickly dispelled.
This drives the IRS nuts, because most taxpayers receive refunds. The basis of the free-market economic system is supposed to be that people will act rationally in their economic self-interest. If this were true, taxpayers with refunds would file in January in order to get their money as fast as possible, since the IRS does not pay interest on money owed to the taxpayer.
The IRS would love to find a way to even out its workload from January through April. In reality, most returns are filed either in late January and early February or right before the April 15 deadline. A 1977 internal study by the IRS, investigating changing the filing dates, said that “These peaks are so pronounced that Service Centers frequently have to furlough some temporary employees between the two workload peaks.”
Before the code changed in 1954, the IRS experienced the same bimodal pattern—the only difference was that the second influx occurred in mid-March instead of mid-April. If the due date was extended a month, the second peak would probably occur in mid-May.
The IRS has contemplated staggering the due dates for different taxpayers, but the potential problems are huge (e.g., employers would have to customize W-2s for employees; single filers who get married might end up with extra-short or extra-long tax years when they decided to file a joint return; if a change in the tax rate occurs, when does it take effect?; would states and cities conform to a staggered schedule?) and probably not worth the effort. The same study contemplated extending the filing date (while offering financial incentives for filing early) but also concluded that the potential traps outweigh the benefits.
The IRS knows that many taxpayers deliberately overwithhold as a way to enforce savings, even though they will not collect any interest while the government holds their money. These overwithholders, flouting the advice of any sensible accountant, are most unlikely to be tempted to file early because of a possible $10 bonus from the IRS.
Now that the IRS grants an automatic two-month extension on filing to anyone who asks for it, even tax preparers are generally against changing the April 15 deadline. Henry W. Bloch, the president of H&R Block, has penetrated the very soul of his customer, and in 1976 offered this appraisal in the Kansas City Times:
We get people in our office at 10 or 11 the night of April 15 and then they run down to the post office. If you extended that April 15 deadline to June 30, in my opinion, all they’re going to do is wait until June 30 instead of April 15…. The reason for that is simply the old American habit of putting things off.
Submitted by Richard Miranda of Renton, Washington. Thanks also to Edward Hirschfield of Portage, Michigan.
What’s the Difference Between a Lake and a Pond?
“This is an Imponderable?” we hear you muttering beneath your breath as you read the question. “A lake is a big pond.”
Sure, you’re right. But have you considered exactly what is the dividing line in size between a lake and a pond? And what separates a lake from a sea or a pool? Do you think you know the answer?
Well, if you do, why don’t you go into the field of geography or topography or geology? Because the professionals in these fields sure don’t have any standard definitions for any of these bodies of water.
As stated in the National Mapping Division’s Topographic Instructions’ “Glossary of Names for Topographic Forms,” a lake is “Any standing body of inland water generally of considerable size.” The same publication classifies a pond as “a small fresh-water lake.” But other government sources indicate that salt-water pools may be called lakes.
And absolutely no one is willing to say what the dividing line in size is between the lake and the pond. In fact, the only absolutely clear-cut distinction between the two is that a lake is always a natural formation; if it is manmade, the body is classified as a pond. Ponds are often created by farmers to provide water for livestock. Some ponds are created to provide feeding and nesting grounds for waterfowl. Hatcheries create stocked ponds to breed fish.
Many communities try to inflate the importance of their small reservoirs by calling them lakes rather than ponds. No one is about to stop them.
Submitted by Jeffrey Chavez of Torrance, California. Thanks also to Ray Kerr of Baldwin, Missouri, and Eugene Bender of Mary, Missouri.
What’s the Difference Between an Ocean and a Sea?
The same folks who are having trouble distinguishing between lakes and ponds are struggling with this one, too. Once again, there is general agreement that an ocean is larger than a sea.
The standard definition of an ocean, as stated in the United States Geological Survey’s Geographic Names Information Service, is “The great body of salt water that occupies two-thirds of the surface of the earth, or one of its major subdivisions.” Notice the weasel words at the end. Is the Red Sea a “major subdivision” of the Indian Ocean? If so, why isn’t it the Red Ocean? Or simply referred to as the Indian Ocean?
Most, but by no means all seas are almost totally landlocked and connected to an ocean or a larger sea, but no definition we encountered stated this as a requirement for the classification. Geographical and geological authorities can’t even agree on whether a sea must always be saline: the United States Geological Survey’s Topographical Instructions say yes; but in their book Water and Water Use Terminology, Professors J. O. Veatch and C. R. Humphrys indicate that “sea” is sometimes used interchangeably with “ocean”:
In one place a large body of salt water may be called lake, in another a sea. The Great Lakes, Lake Superior and others, are fresh water but by legal definition are seas.
The nasty truth is that you can get away with calling most places whatever names you want. We often get asked what the difference is between a “street” and an “avenue” or a “boulevard.” At one time, there were distinctions among these classifications: A street was a paved path. “Street” was a useful term because it distinguished a street from a road, which was often unpaved. An avenue was, in England, originally a roadway leading from the main road to an estate, and the avenue was always lined with trees. Boulevards were also tree-lined but were much wider thoroughfares than avenues.
Most of these distinctions have been lost in practice over the years. Developers of housing projects have found that using “street” to describe the roadways in their communities makes them sound drab and plebeian. By using “lane,” which originally referred to a narrow, usually rural road, they can conjure up Mayberry rather than urban sprawl. By using “boulevard,” a potential buyer visualizes Paris rather than Peoria.
For whatever reason, North Americans seem to like lakes more than seas. We are surrounded by oceans to the west and east. By standard definitions, we could certainly refer to Lake Ontario, which is connected, via the St. Lawrence, to the Atlantic, as the Ontario Sea. But we don’t. And no one, other than Imponderables readers, evidently, is losing any sleep over it.
Submitted by Don and Marian Boxer of Toronto, Ontario. Thanks also to June Puchy of Lyndhurst, Ohio.
Why Does the United States Mint Use a Private Firm—UPS—to Ship Its Coin Sets?
Why would anyone, even a go
vernmental agency, want to use the boringly reliable United Parcel Service when it could experience the excitement and sense of danger in using the United States Postal Service to ship its coin sets? By using the USPS, every order’s fate could be a potentially unsolved mystery.
Of course, every governmental agency has its own budget to worry about. If a government office feels it can save money or save time by using private industry, it is under no obligation to throw its business to a government agency.
The U.S. Mint actually does use the USPS to ship some coin orders. Francis B. Frere, assistant director of the Mint for sales operations, explained the Department of the Treasury’s policy:
In making the determination as to which service to use, we look at the product we are shipping and the cost involved, taking into consideration value, weight, and distance.
Cost is a concern to us. There are substantial savings to be realized in shipping coins by UPS. On an annual basis, we achieve savings in excess of $1 million by selectively shipping our products by UPS rather than first class mail through the U.S. Postal Service. UPS insures all packages against loss or damage.
The Mint’s coin programs are self-supporting. It is our responsibility to manage the coin programs in the most effective and economical manner possible…
Submitted by Ray W. Cummings of St. Louis, Missouri.
How Do Figure Skaters Keep from Getting Dizzy While Spinning? Is It Possible to Eye a Fixed Point While Spinning So Fast?
Imponderables readers aren’t the only ones interested in this question. So are astronauts, who suffer from motion sickness in space. We consulted Carole Shulman, executive director of the Professional Skaters Guild of America, who explained:
Tests were conducted by NASA several years ago to determine the answer to this very question. Research proved that with a trained skater, the pupils of the eyes do not gyrate back and forth during a spin as they do with an untrained skater. The rapid movement of the eyes catching objects within view is what actually causes dizziness.
The eyes of a trained skater do not focus on a fixed point during a spin but rather they remain in a stabilized position focusing on space between the skater and the next closest object. This gaze is much like that of a daydream.
So how are skaters taught to avoid focusing on objects or people in an arena? Claire O’Neill Dillie, skating coach and motivational consultant, teaches students to see a “blurred constant,” an imaginary line running around the rink. The imaginary line may be in the seats or along the barrier of the rink (during layback spins, the imaginary line might be on the ceiling). The crucial consideration is that the skater feels centered. Even when the hands and legs are flailing about, the skater should feel as if his or her shoulders, hips, and head are aligned.
Untrained skaters often feel dizziest not in the middle of the spin but when stopping (the same phenomenon experienced when a tortuous amusement park ride stops and we walk off to less than solid footing). Dillie teaches her students to avoid vertigo by turning their heads in the opposite direction of the spin when stopping.
What surprised us about the answers to this Imponderable is that the strategies used to avoid dizziness are diametrically opposed to those used by ballet dancers, who use a technique called “spotting.” Dancers consciously pick out a location or object to focus upon; during each revolution, they center themselves by spotting that object or location. When spotting, dancers turn their head at the very last moment, trailing the movement of the body, whereas skaters keep their head aligned with the rest of their body.
Why won’t spotting work for skaters? For the answer, we consulted Ronnie Robertson, an Olympic medalist who has attained a rare distinction: Nobody has ever spun faster on ice than him.
How fast? At his peak, Robertson’s spins were as fast as six revolutions per second. He explained to us that spotting simply can’t work for skaters because they are spinning too fast to focus visually on anything. At best, skaters are capable of seeing only the “blurred constant” to which Claire O’Neill Dillie was referring, which is as much a mental as a visual feat.
Robertson, trained by Gustav Lussi, considered to be the greatest spin coach of all time, was taught to spin with his eyes closed. And so he did. Robertson feels that spinning without vertigo is an act of mental suppression, blocking out the visual cues and rapid movement that can convince your body to feel dizzy.
Robertson explains that the edge of the blade on the ice is so small that a skater’s spin is about the closest thing to spinning on a vertical point as humans can do. When his body was aligned properly, Robertson says that he felt calm while spinning at his fastest, just as a top is most stable when attaining its highest speeds.
While we had the greatest spinner of all time on the phone, we couldn’t resist asking him a related Imponderable: Why do almost all skating routines, in competitions and skating shows and exhibitions, end with long and fast scratch spins? Until we researched this Imponderable, we had always assumed that the practice started because skaters would have been too dizzy to continue doing anything else after rotating so fast. But Robertson pooh-poohed our theory.
The importance of the spin, to Robertson, is that unlike other spectacular skating moves, spins are sustainable. While triple jumps evoke oohs and aahs from the audience, a skater wants a spirited, prolonged reaction to the finale of his or her program. Spins are ideal because they start slowly and eventually build to a climax so fast that it cannot be appreciated without the aid of slow-motion photography.
Robertson believes that the audience remembers the ending, not the beginning, of programs. If a skater can pry a rousing standing ovation out of an audience, perhaps supposedly sober judges might be influenced by the reaction.
Robertson’s trademark was not only a blindingly fast spin but a noteworthy ending. He used his free foot to stop his final spin instantly at the fastest point. Presumably, when he stopped, he opened his eyes to soak in the appreciation of the audience.
Submitted by Barbara Harris Polomé of Austin, Texas. Thanks also to David McConnaughey of Cary, North Carolina.
Why Do Straws in Drinks Sometimes Sink and Sometimes Rise to the Surface?
The movement of the straw depends upon the liquid in the glass and the composition of the straw itself. The rapidly rising straw phenomenon is usually seen in glasses containing carbonated soft drinks. Reader Richard Williams, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service, explains the phenomenon:
…the rise occurs as carbon dioxide bubbles form on both the outside and inside of the straw. This increases the buoyancy of the straw and it gradually rises out of the liquid.
The gas is under considerable pressure when the drink is first drawn or poured. When that pressure is released the gas forms small bubbles on the sides of the glass and on the straw. As the bubbles grow the straw becomes buoyant enough to “float” higher and higher in the container.
Occasionally, though, a straw will rise in a noncarbonated beverage, and we didn’t get a good explanation for this phenomenon until we heard from Roger W. Cappello, president of straw-maker Clear Shield National. We often get asked how our sources react to being confronted with strange questions. The only answer we can give is—it varies. Sure, we like authoritative sources who fawn over us and smother us in data. But we must confess we have a special place in our hearts for folks like Cappello, who make us sweat a little before divulging their secrets. Here is his letter to Imponderables, verbatim, skipping only the obvious pleasantries:
After pondering your question for a while, I decided to toss your letter as I was too busy for this. I later retrieved the letter and decided I would attempt to give you an answer that is slightly technical, mixed with some common sense and some B.S.
First off, I know the action you were referring to had something to do with “specific gravity.” Specific gravity, as defined by Webster, is “the rate of the density of a substance to the density of a substance (as pure water) taken as a standard when both densitie
s are obtained by weighing in air.”
Straws today are formed from polypropylene, whereas many years ago they were made of polystyrene, before that paper, and before that, wheat shafts.
Assuming water has a specific gravity of 1, polypropylene is .9, and polystyrene is 1.04. A polypropylene straw will float upward in a glass of water, whereas a polystyrene straw will sink. However, a polystyrene straw will float upward in a carbonated drink as the carbonation bubbles attach themselves to the side of the straw, which will help offset the slight specific gravity difference between water and polystyrene. A polypropylene straw will float higher in a carbonated drink for the same reason. If you put a polypropylene straw in gasoline, and please don’t try this, it will sink because the specific gravity of gas is lighter than water.
If you lined up ten glasses of different liquids, all filled to the same level, the straws would most likely float at all different levels due to the different specific gravities of the liquids and the attachment of various numbers of bubbles to the straws.
I really wish you hadn’t brought this up as I’m going to lunch now. I think I’ll order hot coffee so I can ponder the imponderables of my business without distraction.
Do Penguins Have Knees? Page 4
