With the annual April 15 deadline fast approaching, the Internal Revenue Service has announced a new option for paying taxes. Americans can now send cash payments to the federal agency through their neighborhood 7-Eleven convenience store.
“We continue to look for new ways to provide services for our taxpayers,” IRS Commissioner John Koskinen said in a news release. “Taxpayers have many options to pay their tax bills by direct debit, a check or a credit card, but this provides a new way for people who can only pay their taxes in cash without having to travel to an IRS Taxpayer Assistance Center.”
More than 7,000 7-Eleven locations in 34 states are participating.
The new option is intended to help individuals who may not have a bank account or credit card, but an email address is required. Previously, people who wanted to pay their taxes in cash would have had to go to an IRS Taxpayer Assistance Center.
To make the new payment option available, the IRS partnered with Official Payments, an electronic payment company that the agency has been working with since 1999 to facilitate tax payments via credit card, and PayNearMe.
Taxpayers interested in utilizing the new payment method still have to go through a few steps, however. They must first go to the IRS.gov payments page, select the cash option, and wait for a confirmation email containing a link to a payment code and instructions on how to pay.
There is a $1,000 per day limit on payments, each of which entails a $3.99 fee. Once they’ve gone through the all the steps, taxpayers must send the payment within two business days.