Some Tax Packages Contain
Incorrect Mailing Labels

WASHINGTON - Some taxpayers may have mailed their individual income tax returns only to find them right back in their mailboxes instead of delivered to the Internal Revenue Service. The IRS has just learned that a printing contractor used the wrong bar code when printing IRS service center address labels for the return envelopes in about one million 1040 packages.

In these packages, the bar coding below the service center address is actually the taxpayer's zip code instead of the service center's, so the postal service may send the tax return back to the taxpayer.

The IRS has asked the contractor to send corrected labels within the next few weeks to taxpayers who received the incorrect ones. Taxpayers whose returns were sent back to them may readdress the envelope with the new label. But taxpayers who wish to file their tax return don't have to wait until they receive the corrected label. They can simply cross out the incorrect bar code on the existing label and mail the return. The post off ice will apply the correct bar code for that service center.

The bar code on the service center address label can be compared with the bar code in the taxpayer's address on the outside of the package -- if it matches, the service center address label is incorrect.

The faulty labels are in Form 1040-5 and Form 1040-10 tax packages -- these numbers are printed on the back cover -- sent to taxpayers along the East and West Coasts. Both the 1040-5 and 1040-10 packages include Forms 1040,1040-V (Payment Voucher), and 4562 (Depreciation and Amortization), and Schedules A and B (itemized Deductions and Interest and Dividend Income), C (Profit or Loss from Business), C-EZ (Net Profit from Business), D (Capital Gains and Losses), and EIC (Earned Income Credit). In addition, the 1040-5 package includes Form 2441 (Child and Dependent Care Expenses) and Schedule E (Supplemental Income and Loss).

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