By Maxine Shapiro, KERA 90.1 commentator.
Dallas, TX – Twenty-nine days from today at midnight, the IRS will be expecting your tax return to be filed. If you've waited this long, you've probably contemplated doing it via e-filing, right from your home computer. I'm Maxine Shapiro with KERA Marketplace Middays.
More and more people are finding electronic-filing increasingly attractive. For good reasons. To start, no papers and pencil to mess with. According to an interview conducted by Wall Street Journal Online, Todd Stanley of Intuit Inc.'s TurboTax, the leading tax-preparation program, Stanley states that if you're married, have kids, a home, and a few investments, your preparation time can take about 90 minutes to 2 hours on average. Oh, you save about four hours over the paper and pencil method.
What about accuracy? Stanley quotes an IRS statistic: 20-percent of returns filed by hand have some sort of error, the most common being an incorrect Social Security number. With e-filing, the error rate drops to less than 1-percent. And for a lot of us, the best reason to file electronically - if you're due a refund and let's say you file before noon on Thursday, that money will be in your bank account via direct-deposit the following Friday.
Concerning the new tax laws, Stanley says that Turbo Tax asks the pertinent questions as you go along, and a red flag is even raised if the IRS might be suspicious of any numbers.
There are many programs online and the costs vary. There are over twenty reputable sites for e-filing that are registered with the IRS. I found those sites by going to IRS.gov and clicking on "e-filing." If you question security, Bankrate.com suggests you use one of these sites. 9 are free and 25 have a fee averaging $20. The beauty here is that you can shop and see which one you're most comfortable with BEFORE you pay the fee.
There can be additional fees. Be cautious or at least knowing before you agree to an additional service. So if it's getting late, spend a little time doing the research. You might be grateful in the end and your hand might really thank you. For KERA Marketplace Middays, I'm Maxine Shapiro.
Marketplace Midday Reports air on KERA 90.1 Monday - Friday at 1:04 P.M.