PROTESTERS MARK DEADLINE DAY WITH RALLY FOR BUSH’S TAX CUTS

A small pack of activists tried to rally support for President Bush’s tax cut at the downtown Birmingham post office Monday.

Members of Alabama Citizens for a Sound Economy donned T-shirts and waved signs promoting the president’s $1.6 trillion tax cut plan and bemoaning income taxes.

“We believe this is our money, not the politicians in Washington,” said Twinkle Andress, director of Alabama Citizens for a Sound Economy.

The 16 protesters marched and chanted for about 10 minutes before they gradually dispersed. Citizens for a Sound Economy is a national group dedicated to free markets and limited government.

Around them in the post office parking lot on 24th Street North, people streamed into the post office to mail their tax returns.

Keith Molton moved to Memphis 18 months ago and he was in town visiting family. On Monday, he picked up some forms to get an extension on his taxes.

“I’m happy with the system,” he said. “I got a tax deduction here that I’m holding,” he said of his 5-month-old son Keith D. Molton II.

Inside the post office, the Internal Revenue Service posted several people to help with last-minute questions and returns. Benita Wilson, an IRS taxpayer resolution representative, used a laptop computer connected to a printer to produce completed returns.

Many people who wait until tax day to complete their returns “just enjoy the hustle and the bustle” of a busy post office, she said.

The deadline for filing income tax returns is normally April 15, but taxpayers got a one-day extension because the 15th fell on a Sunday this year.

GRAPHIC: Photo, Alabama Citizens for a Sound Economy activists wore T-shirts proclaiming “We Need a Tax Cut” during a brief protest at Birmingham’s post office on Monday, the tax-filing deadline. NEWS STAFF/JERRY AYRES