In a letter dated 1789 Benjamin Franklin wrote to his friend Jean-Baptiste Leroy, “‘In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.”

In the modern era you can add another certainty: long lines at the post office the final day taxes can be filed.

Although midnight is the witching hour for filing today, no local post offices will be extending their hours.

The Canyon Country post office located at 18336 Soledad Canyon Road will only be open until 5 p.m.

The Saugus Drugs postal office at 27641 Bouquet Canyon Road will also be open until 5 p.m.

The Newhall location at 23642 Lyons Avenue will be open until 5:30 p.m.

The main post office at 24355 Creekside Road in Santa Clarita will stay open the latest until 6 p.m.

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Taxpayers have become accustomed to the April 15 filing date, however, this year they have until tonight April 18 at midnight to file their returns.

The three day extension can be attributed to President Abraham Lincoln and emancipation. This year Friday the 15^th was Emancipation Day in Washington, D.C. The local holiday celebrates Lincoln’s signing of a law the ended slavery in the nation’s capitol.

Since local holidays in Washington affect tax deadlines the federal filing date was pushed back. The state of California elected to follow the federal deadline.

The problem of long lines at the post office may soon be a thing of the past. The Internal Revenue Service announced taxpayers set a record this weekend for e-filed tax returns, topping 100 million for the first time.

By early Monday morning, the IRS had received nearly 101 million e-filed returns for the 2011 tax season, representing an 8.8 percent increase from last year.

The IRS is also approaching another milestone of one billion tax returns filed electronically since the e-file program went national in 1990.

However, for those still filing the old-fashioned way, the Van Nuys post office at 15701 Sherman Way is the nearest facility with extended hours. They will remain open until 7:30 p.m.

For information on extended hours for all California post office locations log onto http://www.usps.com/tax/welcome.htm