Taxable Talk

Back when I was getting my MBA I did a team project about a California company that offers private delivery services in just Southern California. They were competing against FedEx, and they built a regional network. Recently I received an inquiry from a client who wanted to use them to send something to the IRS in Fresno; I told my client not to. He needed to use FedEx or UPS (and then, specific services offered by FedEx and UPS) or the postal service.

The reason for this is simple: The IRS only accepts certain of these services as equivalent to the postal service.

Today the IRS came out with their annual notice of which services you can use:

Effective May 6, 2015, the list of designated PDSs is as follows:

FedEx:
1. FedEx First Overnight
2. FedEx Priority Overnight
3. FedEx Standard Overnight
4. FedEx 2 Day
5. FedEx International Next Flight Out
6. FedEx International Priority
7. FedEx International First
8. FedEx International Economy

UPS:
1. UPS Next Day Air Early AM
2. UPS Next Day Air
3. UPS Next Day Air Saver
4. UPS 2nd Day Air
5. UPS 2nd Day Air A.M.
6. UPS Worldwide Express Plus
7. UPS Worldwide Express.

Only the specific delivery services enumerated in this list are designated delivery services for purposes of section 7502(f). FedEx and UPS are not designated with respect to any type of delivery service not enumerated in this list. Taxpayers are cautioned that merely because a delivery service is provided by FedEx or UPS, it does not mean that the service is designated for purposes of the timely mailing treated as timely filing/paying rule of section 7502. [emphasis added]

So if you’re going to use one of these private delivery services to send something to the IRS, use the correct service. If you don’t, the money you spent could be wasted.

Tags: private.delivery.services

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 6th, 2015 at 1:01 pm and is filed under IRS. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.