Hacker News Reader

Comment by theginger | Hacker News Reader

What happens if you need to file a tax return but you can't because your flight back from space got cancelled and you were delayed for 6 months?

View on HN

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.

NY Times report: https://www.nytimes.com/1970/04/13/archives/apollo-13-coasts...

Mission transcript: https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/static/history/alsj/...

(Even though "legally, no one has ever decided whether a journey into space technically counts as leaving the United States.")

At least the customs requirement has been resolved: https://www.flexport.com/blog/apollo-11-astronauts-cleared-m...

>"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.

Can't one just file that through internet in the US? They do have internet access as far as I understand.

I hope no SMS 2FA is needed for this :-)

You do get some kind of automatic extension for being out of the country...

Does overflying the US in low Earth orbit count as reentry? Or do you need to re-enter the atmosphere im order to re-enter?

Outer space is agreed upon by the USA as being beyond a country's sovereignty claims - https://www.unoosa.org/oosa/en/ourwork/spacelaw/treaties/int...

The Kármán Line is also generally accepted to be the boundary of outer space, set at 100 kilometers above ground.

The ISS orbits at something like 415km above Earth.

I'm no lawyer but is seems plausible to say no, orbiting above 100km of altitude over the USA would not be considered entry into the country.

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)

they force you to file through turbotax on space station internet. Using turbotax is the penalty.

With that much overtime money surely they can get an excellent accountant!

Don’t tax accountants exist in the US?

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.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com