WASHINGTON — This year, tax day is not on April 15. Instead, taxes are due on Tuesday, April 18.
There are several reasons we get a few extra days to file taxes this year.
Since April 15 was on Saturday, normally that would mean Monday, the next business day, would end up being tax day.
But Monday is a holiday in D.C., thus impacting the tax deadline again by pushing it back until Tuesday.
The holiday known as Emancipation Day in D.C. — also known as the Compensated Emancipation Act — marked the end of slavery in the District.
On April 16, 1862 President Abraham Lincoln signed the bill into law, freeing more than 3,000 slaves.
The law also compensated slave owners for the release of their slaves.
Emancipation Day in D.C. happened eight months before the Emancipation Proclamation, which was a presidential proclamation and executive order freeing the slaves in the south, in the confederate states, which gave more than three million slaves their freedom.
Here is a historical overview of D.C. Emancipation Day fom the District government website. The White House Historical Association provides more history on the holiday.
Beginning in 1866, parades marked the holiday in D.C., but those parades stopped in 1901.
D.C. revived the parades in 2002.
In 2005, Emancipation Day became an official holiday in the District.
