1040 Packs Them In at 11th Hour

Lorna Lane pays all her bills in cash because she doesn’t like to do the adding and subtracting required to own a checkbook. So it’s not surprising that she has always left preparation of her tax returns to an accountant.

But this year was different.

“I always pay through the nose to have them done and I just made up my mind I’m not going to be stupid. I’m going to do my own taxes this year,” said Lane, a Canoga Park grandmother with tinted blond hair and sparkling eyes.

Lane was one of several hundred people making last-minute trips Tuesday to Internal Revenue Service offices in the Federal Building in Van Nuys to pick up tax forms and seek advice on filling them out in time to make the annual April 15 deadline.

“It’s a madhouse. Everybody waits until the last minute,” said Arnelda Monroe of Sunland, one of four IRS taxpayer service representatives in the Van Nuys office. By the end of the day, the four representatives in the office would have assisted more than 150 people each, Monroe said.

More than a dozen people sat on hard-backed chairs, carrying tax materials in everything from paper bags to briefcases, against a backdrop of a giant 1040A U.S. Individual Tax Return form. Some appeared worried. Others were morose, laconic or determined. Nobody appeared happy to be there.

The first to arrive at the tax office Tuesday morning was Lane, who described herself as a former concert pianist and schoolteacher “the same age as Bob Hope.” She said she now works a series of $3.35-an-hour jobs in fast-food restaurants.

Lane, who was lugging a heavy bag filled with tax receipts past materials needed to prepare her taxes, said she spent the night in a Canoga Park coffee shop, trying to do her taxes with the help of waitresses, customers and the manager.

Several people suggested that Lane go to the IRS. So, when daylight came, she took a bus to the Federal Building, she said.

When Monroe came to work at 7:25 a.m., she found Lane sitting on the floor outside IRS offices, still dressed in her pink smock from volunteer hospital work she had done the night before, Monroe said.

“She just wants to ask questions but she didn’t want anybody to do it for her,” Monroe said. Lane repeatedly went into IRS offices to ask advice of the tax experts, then returned to her bench in the hall to resume calculations on a coffee-stained napkin.

“I’m dead tired. I’m exhausted. But I had a chili dog and I saw a Hawaiian orchid tree. That revived me,” Lane said.

Finally, by early afternoon, Lane was finished with her federal returns.

“I got a refund--$128,” she said exuberantly, then headed off to the state office building to do her state taxes.

Others of her fellow taxpayers looked less happy.

“This is crazy. I got all kinds of forms and I don’t know what to do with them,” said Charles Carlisle, 37, a Van Nuys truck driver, who was later assisted in filing a return.

“You almost know exactly what everybody’s going to ask before they ask it,” Monroe said.

“If they would read it line by line, it would be easy,” said Rita Kelley, another taxpayer service representative.

“One year, I made my third-grade Cub Scout troop do the 1040 tax form and they did fine,” said tax representative Sally Munk.

Munk said, “It’s a good year this year. The public’s attitude is good. You don’t see any demonstrators out there this year.”

Many people simply came to pick up extension forms that allow them to delay filing their taxes.

A few purposely waited to file just before the deadline on the theory that it was one way to beat the IRS.

“If you put it in at the last minute, your chances of avoiding the audit are way up,” speculated Tommy Holevas of Northridge, a musician and actor who uses the stage name of Tommy Holden.

“I always have to pay them a lot of money so it seems like I should keep the money as long as I can. Why should I pay them early? All I do is lose the interest,” said Barry Leavengood, 40, a computer systems analyst from Woodland Hills.

Most had reasons for being caught in the last-minute rush, from a slow accountant to W-2 forms that never came.

“I was out of the country,” said one man.

“I was planning a project at work,” said another man.

“Other things have priority--like a lovely woman. In fact, a few lovely women,” said a third.