Use Staples When Filing Your Tax Returns! West Los Angeles Staples to be an Official Late-Night Tax Return Mailing Location On Tax Day, April 15.

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 6, 1999--

Mobile Post Office; Free Copying of Tax Returns All Day; IRS Official

to Offer Tax Advice

Staples One of Four Late-Night Mailing Locations in Los Angeles

for the United States Postal Service

For all those last-minute filers, Staples is making it even easier to send in their taxes with the United States Postal Service (USPS) up through the midnight deadline while offering taxpayers some great things in return. Free photocopies sound good? How about an area to collate and sign returns, and address envelopes? Or a chance to win supplies and gift certificates from Staples to help get organized for next year?

Staples The Office Superstore, in partnership with the United States Postal Service, will make tax return mailing services available to last-minute tax filers on April 15th at the 24-hour West Los Angeles Staples store on Bundy Drive. This store will be one of four late-night mailing locations in Los Angeles for the USPS.

Taxpayers can mail their taxes from Staples in two easy ways. With a convenient in-store drop box, taxpayers can mail their stamped returns at any time that day or night. Postage will be available for purchase. From 6 p.m. to midnight, last-minute filers can buy postage, postmark and mail their tax returns from a full-service USPS mobile post office that will be stationed with two postal employees in the Staples parking lot. All returns dropped off in the in-store mail box or mailed from the mobile van will be guaranteed postmarked by the USPS prior to the midnight deadline.

In addition to this convenient tax return mailing service, Staples is offering some unique promotions on April 15 for last-minute filers including: -0-

-- Free copying of tax returns all day (up to ten
   pages)
-- A "Get Organized" Tax Station, located in the furniture
   section of the store, offering complimentary supplies and
   desk space to collate papers, address envelopes and sign returns.
-- There will be representatives from the IRS to answer tax
   questions and pass out tax extension forms from 4pm to 7pm. Also
   on hand from 4pm to 7pm will be Jim Demetriou, a tax attorney,
   and two associates from Demetriou, Montano and Associates, to
   assist with tax filing questions.
-- Snacks from Blue Diamond Growers and Pepperidge Farms (while
   supplies last).
-- Ten drawings to win a $50 Staples gift certificate.

-0-

"Staples is very excited to partner with the United States Postal Service to offer this service to our customers. Staples mission is to take the cost and hassle out of doing business and there is no better time to do this than on Tax Day. We are doing that by offering a convenient place to collate, photocopy and mail your tax returns," said Jim Peters, president, U.S. Stores, Staples.

The West Los Angeles Staples store is the only Staples store in the United States to feature this promotion with the United States Postal Service. The store is conveniently located at 2052 Bundy Drive, between Olympic and Pico, off the Santa Monica 10 Freeway.

Staples Inc. is a $7 billion retailer of office supplies, furniture and technology to consumers and business from home based businesses to Fortune 50 companies in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and Germany. Headquartered outside Boston, Staples invented the office superstore concept and today is the largest operator of office superstores in the world. The company has over 44,000 employees serving customers through more than 950 office superstores, mail order catalogs, e-commerce and a contract business. Staples is the naming rights partner for Los Angeles' new sports and entertainment venue, STAPLES Center, scheduled to open in October 1999. More information can be found www.staples.com.