Thanks to a seldom-observed holiday, the Internal Revenue Service announced that taxpayers will have until April 17, to file their 2006 returns and pay any taxes due.

April 15 falls on a Sunday in 2007, while the following day, April 16, is Emancipation Day, a legal holiday in the District of Columbia. The holiday is in honor of President Abraham Lincoln signing the Compensated Emancipation Act of 1862, which freed about 3,000 slaves in the District of Columbia nine months before he issued the Emancipation Proclamation freeing all U.S. slaves.

The tax agency had previously announced that residents of the District of Columbia and six eastern states would have an April 17 deadline because they are served by an IRS processing facility in Massachusetts, where Patriots Day is observed on April 16.

The April 17 deadline will apply to the following:

• 2006 federal individual income tax returns;
• Requests for an automatic six-month tax-filing extension;
• Tax year 2006 balance due payments;
• Tax-year 2006 contributions to a Roth or traditional IRA;
• Individual estimated tax payments for the first quarter of 2007; and,
• Individual refund claims for tax year 2003, where the regular three-year statute of limitations is expiring.