By Joe Kelly

Larry Hannafin has paid the penalty for failing to get his Norfolk tax payment postmarked on time. As reported in the September 2026 Norfolk Now, Hannafin deposited his annual property tax payment at the post office on July 31, a day before its due date, expecting it would be postmarked that day. He was unaware that postmarks are no longer routinely applied when mail is dropped off, but only when the mail is run through a machine at the regional processing center in Hartford. As a result, Hannafin’s envelope was not postmarked until Wednesday, Aug. 5, making him officially delinquent and liable for an 18 percent per annum penalty.

Hannafin submitted an affidavit attesting that he had dropped off the envelope on time, and Norfolk Postmaster Michelle Veronesi also provided a letter backing up his claim. However, according to Norfolk Tax Collector Pamela Pelletier, state law dictates that to be considered on time, a tax payment must have a United States Postal Service (USPS) postmark showing a date on or before the tax due date. Affidavits and assertions don’t matter—only the postmark does.

While postmarks were traditionally applied at each individual post office, the USPS has been centralizing more of these operations in regional centers. This is the first calendar year in which this new policy—which applies nationwide across all 30,000+ post offices—has been formally in effect. According to Pelletier, Hannafin was one of about two dozen Norfolk taxpayers whose payments arrived with late postmarks. That’s double the usual number, which she attributes least in part to lack of awareness of the new USPS policy. The staff at Norfolk’s post office, and all others, will manually apply a postmark to any stamped mail. But as per the new USPS policy, one must specifically ask for that.

The original story reported that services such as certified mail, registered mail or a certificate of mailing could provide proof of a mailing date. That is not correct. The only legally valid way to establish that something was mailed on a specific date is to ask that a postmark be applied manually by a postal clerk.

Hannafin’s penalty for his late payment amounted to $151.04. He dropped off the envelope containing his check at the post office. He did not request that the postmark be hand stamped.