Keith Goodrum

The ultimate deadline is upon us today. In a few hours the fun ends for Taxpayers here in the U.S. Most of the tax preparation offices across the country will be open right up till midnight.

This year is the 1st year in awhile I’ve not worked as a tax preparer. It was nice, but being a tax geek I missed the challenge.

The IRS places a hard deadline for everyone to file his or her taxes. And if you don’t… the penalties and interest start piling on. There are serious consequences for failing to file your taxes. At the most server level you could end up spending time as a guest of the penal system.

Why are the consequences so harsh? Easy if they don’t make it so tough… hordes of folks will “forget” to file their taxes.

Working in the tax industry I found it amusing how the tax season works. It starts in late January when people start getting their W2’s from their employers.

People who are due a tax refund rush in to get them done. They can’t get their money fast enough. It’s around 2-3 weeks of wall-to-wall customers.

Then the month of March… Crickets! The challenge during this time is trying to stay awake. I got an appreciation for how the Maytag repairman felt.

Starting in April the pace picks up. And as you get closer to the 15th it gets busier. The customer pace becomes more frantic as does the customers level of stress.

By the 15th some of these people are in a near panic… and most of the time it’s because of their own doing.

I’m amused by the fact that even with all the pain the IRS will impose for missing the filing deadline… people still push the envelope.

The marketing lesson is… no matter when you put a deadline on your offer people will wait till the last minute. You will have people that miss the deadline, and want special treatment.

Light Your Offer On Fire With A Deadline discusses more about why the IRS tax deadline is an awesome marketing lesson.

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Popularity: 66% [?]