Should I Use Certified Or Registered Mail

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Certified and Registered Mail:
Is It Always Necessary?

Copyright © 2000, 2002, 2006, 2008, 2009, 2012 by David Eastward. Ross

Mailing your tax return past certified or registered mail wastes your coin. It as well wastes your time and the fourth dimension of those in line behind you while the window clerk at the Mail Office shuffles the necessary paperwork.

I originally wrote this merely after returning from the Mail service Part. I had to purchase stamps in order to post my federal and state income revenue enhancement returns. The Mail Part was a minor, petty-known contract station in a stationery store.

The line for the single clerk was long and moved slowly. It seems that almost of the people in line wanted to mail their tax returns using certified post. What a waste! I have been filing taxation returns for more than l years. Not once have I had a problem with an envelope not beingness delivered to the IRS or the California Franchise Tax Board. The only of import matter is that the postmark on the envelope not be later than 15 April (16 or 17 April if the 15th falls on a weekend).

I have also heard some people advise that tax returns be filed via registered mail, an fifty-fifty worse waste matter. Apparently, many do not know the real purpose of certified or registered mail.

Certified post provides the sender with proof of delivery. No record of the item is kept at the mail service function where the envelope was mailed. The envelope travels along with regular first-grade postal service. At the recipient'southward post part, a receipt is obtained from the recipient, which is either kept at that post office or returned to the sender. Certified mail service is appropriate when the sender might require later proof that the envelope was really received.
I use certified mail service only when the addressee is such a scoundrel that he might deny always receiving information technology or when I might need to evidence to some tertiary person not merely that I mailed the envelope merely that the addressee really received it.

Cost: $2.95 in addition to regular postage.
Registered post provides a secure method of mailing. The envelope travels separately from other postal service, in a special locked container. Each postal employee handling the particular signs for it. At the recipient'due south mail service part, a receipt is obtained from the recipient and kept at that post office; a copy of the receipt may be returned to the sender.
In general, registered mail is advisable when the contents of the envelope have some existent budgetary value (east.g.: greenbacks, jewelry, stock certificates). Information technology is also appropriate when the contents must be protected because they are sensitive (e.g., personnel or medical records, a list of credit cards with their account numbers).

Often registered mail is also insured. Some people cite an inflated value when they request insurance; for instance, someone mailing an envelope containing a will might request insurance for $750,000 because that is the value of the estate. If the will were lost in the post in this case, withal, the U.Due south. Postal Service would pay simply the cost of preparing the volition (if it is the original) or the cost of copying it (if it is a copy). In whatsoever case, in that location is a maximum limit of $25,000 for insured registered mail.

Toll: $10.95 without insurance, in addition to regular postage

The delivery of both certified and registered post may be delayed if the sender requires simply the addressee to sign the receipt.

Some of those mailing their tax returns requested a return receipt. The added cost is $one.15 for an electronic receipt or $2.35 for a physical (hard-re-create) receipt. For my tax returns, my cancelled check (under-withheld) or a refund cheque (over-withheld) are sufficient proof that the IRS and California Franchise Taxation Board received my taxation returns. Merely if I actually doubtable at that place will exist a dispute whether the envelope was received do I request a render receipt. I know that, if I practise not asking a return receipt and the addressee later claims that the envelope was not received, I can still get a post hoc return receipt for $4.75. If I really need a receipt only 1 fourth dimension out of three mailings, I relieve money by not requesting the receipt in accelerate. Better than that, I have never really needed the receipt, saving the full fee each time I didn't request i.

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NOTE Advisedly: A certificate of mailing is just sufficient to prove when a federal tax return was mailed and only if the postmark on the envelope is missing or unreadable. A document of mailing is not accepted by the IRS to prove that a return was actually mailed.

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If you only need proof that you mailed an envelope, not that it was actually received, you should request a certificate of mailing, which costs $i.15 in addition to regular postage. While in that location is no receipt from the addressee, you practice get a receipt from the postal service function when you mail the particular.

One terminal proposition: Much of the delay at the Mail Office was acquired by the need to fill out the newspaper-work for certified mail. You lot can complete the forms yourself before y'all become into line. That would really make the line move faster.

For farther information about certified and registered mail and about postage rates, visit the Spider web folio for the U.�S. Postal Service.

xv April 2000
Updated xx April 2012

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