How Tax Day Turned Into Party Night at the Post Office

In 20th-century America, last-minute filers weren’t just rushing to the post office to make the Tax Day deadline. Many were heading to a party.

Before electronic filing became common, millions of Americans went to their local postal branch with their paper returns on April 15. Many post offices stayed open until midnight, and crowds were large enough—and stuck in line long enough—that radio stations, fast‑food chains, marching bands and even Playboy turned Tax Day into a marketing opportunity.

Paul Smith, a USPS spokesman who has worked for the service for more than 40 years, recalls massive lines of cars pulling up to his Philadelphia branch on Tax Day. Employees carried buckets, walking up to the cars to take customers’ forms to keep traffic moving and spirits high. “It was all just very, very festive,” he says.

Modern tax filing began in 1913, when the 16th Amendment created the federal income tax, and the government introduced Form 1040. For most of the 20th century, taxpayers completed paper forms and mailed them in.

Across the country, post offices became mini street fairs on April 15, the deadline for filing since 1955. In Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Smith recalls a “dunk the IRS agent” booth where taxpayers could throw balls to plunge a friendly revenue officer into a tank of water. A 1992 St. Petersburg Times article described a similar booth in Florida, with filers paying $1 to dunk off-duty IRS agents to raise money for charity “and allow a few taxpayers filing last-minute returns to vent their anger.”

In Bellmawr, New Jersey, Smith says filers were treated to a huge balloon arch as they drove to the collection box. In Philadelphia, he adds, employees from nearby Atlantic City casinos dressed as dice or playing cards to hand out vouchers.

And then there was Playboy.

Smith remembers two women from the company showing up at his Philadelphia branch, hoping to offer massages to people in line to relieve Tax Day stress. “I said, ‘I don’t think the government is ready for a Postal Service-Playboy partnership,’” he told them. “‘However, legally, you would be permitted up to such a point,’” pointing to a map of the grounds. Hours later, a cable truck arrived and unveiled a sparkling pink Playboy booth. “You can’t make this stuff up,” he says.

The corporate promotions didn’t stop there. A 1999 Associated Press report described dozens of branches across the nation offering free food; music from barbershop quartets, local bands and schools; free scratch-off lottery tickets in Virginia; and even screen tests for the “Got Milk” campaign in Laguna Beach, California.

“A radio station in Bridgman, [Michigan], will offer aspirin to tax filers in that community, while in Pittsburgh a local drug store chain is providing samples of [the antacid] Mylanta,” the AP reported. Elsewhere, Uncle Sam appeared at various post offices in Connecticut, Florida, Pennsylvania, Texas and West Virginia.

One long-standing Tax Day tradition took place in Lawrence, Kansas. According to a 2011 New York Times article, the Alferd Packer Memorial String Band performed at the post office for decades, playing the “William Tell Overture” as last-minute filers headed inside. “Usually on Tax Day people are so blah, but people were dancing and singing and having fun,” postmaster Judy Raney told the newspaper.

And in New York City in the 2000s, the sidewalk outside the James A. Farley Post Office became what one New York Times writer called “our own cour des miracles” [or “court of miracles”], filled with activists, street performers and costumed marketers, including “people who put a bed on the street to advertise a hotel.”

As technology changed, Tax Day parties faded. E-filing became available in 1986, though adoption was slow. But by 2011, more than three-quarters of Americans were filing electronically, according to IRS data, and fewer and fewer post offices were staying open late on Tax Day. By 2025, roughly 94 percent of Americans filed their individual tax returns online, the service reports.

Still, Smith says it’s fun to remember the Tax Day party era. “People were so creative, with all the giveaways and the radio stations broadcasting live all day from the post office,” he says. “It was quite a memorable time.”