Don't Mess With Taxes

This numerically notable day is part of the Leap Year, which gives us 24 more hours to devote to our taxes. Bonus huzzah!

February 2, 2020. What a day.

Super Bowl LIV. International pop star Shakira's birthday, which she'll celebrate performing with J-Lo at halftime of the NFL championship game. Groundhog Day (Phil says early spring).

And the real biggie, it's Palindrome Day.

This 2nd day of the second month of the year 2020 reads the same front or back when written out fully.

02022020 special features: Palindrome dates aren't that uncommon. It happened, based on how they're written, on 070707 and 1-10-2011 and 9-10-19.

But, notes University of Portland electrical engineering professor Aziz Inan, whose website chronicles palindromes from the 19th century to the 23rd, today is super rare.

Why?

Because unlike those earlier numerically notable dates, 02022020 is an eight-digit palindrome.

Plus, it's the first truly international Palindrome Day in 909 years. That means 02022020 is the same regardless of where in the world you live.

In the United States, we write dates as Month/Day/Year, both spelled out (Feb. 2, 2020) or in number format (02/02/2020). Some countries, however, write their dates with the day first: Day/Month/Year.

I learned that back when I worked for the U.S. government relations office of the global food company Nestlé. Those memos from the corporate headquarters in Switzerland freaked me out when I saw, in my American mind's eye, a 27th month!

But 02/02/2020 works wherever and however you write it. The last time this happened was 11/11/1111. The next time will 101 years from now on 12/12/2121. Then not again until the 4th millennium.: 03/03/3030. And so on and so on.

And speaking of threes, 02/02/2020 is the 33rd day of the year with, thanks to it being a Leap Year, 333 days left.

Tax number, too: All this numbers crunching and analyzing of today's date earns 02022020 this week's By the Numbers honor.

And the tax connection?

I'll admit its tenuous, even though I've blogged about numerically notable days before, like the one back on July 7, 2007.

But this special date, one that those of us experiencing it today won't see again in our lifetimes, is, as mentioned earlier, part of a Leap Year February.

That means, as the monthly tax moves over there in the right column point out, we who've yet to finish our taxes have an extra day to work on our returns. And 02/02/2020 is part of that added 24 hours, so it gets today's numeric recognition.

Also, it's the By the Numbers figure because I want to wrap things up today early so I can enjoy the Super Bowl. That's just one of perks of being the blog boss!

You also might find these other numeral-focused items of interest:

• Babies' birthdays determine tax year tax breaks
• National debt passes $23 trillion for first time ever
• Taxpayers in 19 states & D.C. now can get special IRS IP PIN to fight tax identity theft

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