The IRS has updated their list of private delivery services for the first time in over ten years. The update has added three FedEx and one UPS service to the list and removed five discontinued services that were previously acceptable for the timely mailing equals timely filing/paying rule (Sec. 7502).
There are only 15 delivery services that taxpayers can use (outside of the post office) that will satisfy the mailbox rule. These services are provided by FedEx and UPS only, the complete list can be found here. This change is effective as of May 6, 2015.
The delivery services can either mark on the cover of the package the date they received the item for delivery or record the date electronically in their database. If they choose the latter, the IRS will calculate the postmark date as the date received minus the normal amount of time it takes to deliver the package, for example, if it is a two-day delivery service, the postmark date will be two days before the actual delivery date. To overcome this assumption, the taxpayer can submit written confirmation from the delivery service which shows that the date recorded in the delivery service’s electronic database is on or before the due date.
