In case you were wondering, here’s why taxes were due on Tuesday instead of Monday: April 16th was Emancipation Day in the District of Columbia. Emancipation Day commemorates the day in 1862 when President Lincoln signed a law to end slavery in D.C. As it turns out, that was nine months before the Emancipation Proclamation was issued on January 1, 1863. So… Although it’s not a federal holiday, Emancipation Day is the reason that the tax deadline got pushed back an extra day. In fact, under a federal statute enacted decades ago, holidays observed in the District of Columbia have an impact nationwide, not just in D.C. Unfortunately, many of the IRS forms and publications had gone to press before they figured this out, and thus they reflected the wrong date.