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The Benefits Of An E-file Income Tax Return

17 Apr

A guide to making the most out of doing an e-file income tax return.

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has been slowly moving toward an e-file only tax filing system for the past decade or more. Professional tax preparers working on more than 100 tax returns are already required to e-file and next year that number drops to ten. Those taxpayers preparing their own tax return are not yet required to e-file, but the IRS has made their preference clear. A visit to the IRS' website highlights the many options of e-filing programs and strongly encourages taxpayers to try it out. Fortunately, the move toward e-filing is a positive one for everyone involved in the tax filing process.

Benefits of e-filing:

Catches errors before the return is filed. When a return is e-filed, the return will be rejected if social security numbers don't match IRS records or if a dependent has already been claimed on a return. This allows the taxpayer to make the corrections to the return and resubmit it. This prevents issues that will hold up the issuing of refunds and result in having to correspond with the IRS by mail to fix the problem.
Sensitive information is safer. Transmitting a tax return through a secure server prevents sensitive information from being put in the mail. Mail can be lost or intercepted by people who may wish to use personal information found on tax returns for fraudulent purposes.
Refunds are received faster. By e-filing and providing direct deposit information to the IRS, taxpayers can have their refunds as quickly as eight days after finishing their taxes. Before e-filing, the quickest a refund could be expected was three weeks.
Better for the environment. E-filing cuts out the use of paper necessary to file by mail. Further paper savings can be realized by taxpayer's saving digital .pdf copies of their tax returns for their own records as well.

TurboTax, TaxAct and H&R Block are some of the many tax software providers that allow their customers to e-file their return for free when using their software. E-filing is easy, fast and free. If you haven't made the leap to e-filing yet, it's time to start. Once you have experienced the ease and convenience of e-filing your taxes, you'll never go back to snail mail!