April 15 is usually Tax Day, but this year it’s a few days later.
This year, taxes aren’t due until Tuesday, April 17. That’s the deadline for submitting individual tax returns to the IRS for tax year 2017.
The reason Tax Day doesn’t fall on the 15th this year is two-fold: first, April 15 falls on a Sunday this year. And second, Washington DC celebrates Emancipation Day on April 16. So Tax Day is pushed to the 17th.
The 16th is the date when Washington, D.C. is observing Emancipation Day. That holiday honors the 1862 passage of the District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act, which ended slavery in the nation’s capital by paying slave-owners to pledge their loyalty to the Union and free their slaves.
Thus, Tax Day is pushed back yet another day to Tuesday, April 17. The holiday returns to its regular April 15 date for 2019.
