While some Bay Area residents are scrambling to file their income tax returns by today's deadline, others are using Tax Day as a time for political protest.
The U.S. Postal Service is offering extended hours at some locations to accommodate last-minute filers.
The main post offices in Oakland, San Jose and Salinas will all be open until 10 p.m. -- 90 minutes later than usual.
All San Francisco and North Bay offices will be open for normal hours, including the San Francisco International Airport station, which is open until midnight.
The number of post offices offering extended hours has decreased in recent years with more people filing tax returns online, according to the USPS.
Meanwhile, various activist groups are holding rallies around the Bay Area today to advocate for causes including the anti-war movement, health and human services, and the plight of postal workers who are fighting to keep their jobs.
At 3 p.m., a "flash mob" organized by the youth group BAY-Peace will depart from Oakland's Frank Ogawa Plaza for a 4 p.m. rally outside the Oakland Federal Building at 1301 Clay St.
Another group is holding a noon rally at the Fox Plaza post office in San Francisco and a 3 p.m. rally at the Civic Center post office in Oakland to thank Californians for paying their taxes, highlight the funding they provide for health and human services, and to demand that corporations and wealthy residents pay more in taxes.
A collection of those wealthy professionals, the group Tax-Us, is rallying at San Francisco City Hall to call on government to raise their taxes.
The group is supporting a return to Clinton-era tax rates or the "Buffett rule," a proposal to increase taxes on people making more than $1 million per year. The rally was scheduled to start at 11:50 a.m.
Occupy Oakland is organizing a rally in solidarity with postal workers across the country who are facing possible layoffs because of proposed USPS cuts.
That rally is scheduled to start at 3:30 p.m. outside Oakland's main post office at 1675 Seventh St.
Tax Day is normally April 15, but is two days later this year because that date fell on a weekend, and today was Emancipation Day, a holiday in Washington, D.C., according to the USPS.
-Bay City News
