This actually happened on Apollo 13. Backup pilot Jack Swigert was assigned to Apollo 13 two days before launch because the expected pilot, Mattingly, had been potentially exposed to rubella. The flight launched on April 11, just a few days before the April 15 tax deadline and Swigert realized in flight that he had forgotten to file his taxes. Flight controllers thought it was a joke but Swigert was serious: "It ain't too funny. Things kind of happened real fast down there and I do need an extension. I may be spending time in another quarantine besides the one that they're planning for me." (I.e. besides the 21-day astronaut quarantine, he might end up in prison.)
The IRS stated that they could resolve the problem since anyone outside the United States on April 15 automatically gets a two-month extension. (Even though "legally, no one has ever decided whether a journey into space technically counts as leaving the United States.")
Of course, Apollo 13 soon had problems that pushed aside any concerns of tax filing.
>"legally, no one has ever decided whether a journey into space technically counts as leaving the United States."
That gave me a good laugh. Shouldn't it definitely count? You're zipping over every country on earth while you're in orbit so you definitely left!
But if you take off and land in the US, did you _really_ leave? You don't go through customs and immigration for every country you fly over when you're in an airplane, and generally aren't legally considered to have "visited" them. So, wow, good question.
You don't have to go through customs on every country you fly over in a regular plane. If I take off in California and fly to Hawaii I leave the airport like I never left the US, even though I've flown over "international" waters and have left the US' exclusive economic zone. I probably don't get a break if I'm in the air over Canada on the way to Alaska when it turns April 15th. If I take off from the US, orbit the earth a bunch on Tax Day, then land in the US was I "out of the country?" It _seems_ obvious but you did but you could potentially argue against it.
OTOH, if you leave US contiguous waters by boat and sit out in international waters for the month of April you have certainly left the country, even if you never entered another country.
The government forces HN to turn into Reddit: everyone has to post vacuous banter comments until you file. (edit: the post I am replying to was the top comment at the time, for about an hour)
edit: I have to admit my reply was a bit dismissive but can someone enlighten me: Surely you have to be able to pay someone else to file your taxes for you, right?
Yes of course those exist, and the other thing is that the US doesn’t jail people for failing to file a tax return. If you owe, you get a fine, and if you don’t pay the fine they seize assets or garnish wages or whatnot. Usually takes years for this to happen. If you don’t owe, they’re happy to keep your refund til you get around to claiming it later.
Meme replies should be downvoted, there are other places online where joke comments are a regular occurrence. I like how HN at least tries to force a real discussion and attempts at humor need to be both sincere and not low effort.
