Boston Gal's Open Wallet

Ted Tesser's book on taxes for traders claims there is less chance of being audited by filing late or at least on time. Don't file early because then you might be entered into the random audit programs which sample returns for no particular reason. But once April 17 passes the IRS is too overloaded with for-cause audits to run random audits. For-cause audits also usually don't dig into everything but only check particular issues which raised the red flag.

I received a query for more info in Australia once. Was easy enough to comply.

 

I think printing out and mailing the state is a no brainer if you are owing them money. Why spend extra money to pay a bill?
And unless you want the federal refund quicker I don't know how much, if any, advantage at least along the lines of avoiding errors on your part you get by efiling it. Many of any potential errors the taxpayer makes are eliminated I would think by the fact that you prepared your taxes either online or with an installed program. That program would have made sure your math is correct, made sure you entered your SSN, helped hopefully guide you through the forms, etc you would need to do. If you made a mistake like not including some interest or dividends, other income, efiling is not going to pick that up. It's an error whether efiled or printed and mailed.
I did efile both federal and state. I used an online program that cost $9.95 for the federal, and the PA state site to do the stae for free.

 

I never thought about e-filing possibly increasing chances of an audit. Something to think about.

I bought a copy of TurboTax to do mt parent's taxes this year. It was somthing like $35 at Costco (my husband and I file our taxes online through Vanguard).

Anyway, I have to say that it really, really irks me to have to pay to file taxes. I know I could do it by hand for free or I could have used the free software on the IRS site, but I'd still have to do state taxes by hand. I just think filing taxes ought to be easy and free....I'm a dreamer, I know.

 

Many tax programs (Turbo Tax for one) refund the cost of e-filing, so it's free. Of course, you have to mail in the little coupon, but still you get your money back.

For state (at least for AR), it doesn't pay to e-file if you owe money because some form has to be sent in by mail. Ugh. I learned that the hard way last year. So, I'll be e-filing by federal, not my state.

 

Or you can use a web-based tax site like taxact.com. The e-filing is automatically included in the $15 filing fee. It's pretty simple to use.

 

Being a security, privacy and technology professional, I was always concerned about giving a third party my most private and valuable financial information for free (actually they charge you the efile fee) so I never filed electronically. Then a couple of years ago the Turbo Tax people admitted to or were caught not just transmitting your return to the IRS but using that information for marketing and who knows what other purposes. After that I started using TaxCut and will never file electronically until the IRS allows you to send it to the directly. Except for some good lobbying there is not reason we should have to go through these intermediaries to file. If they can have the computing power to accept the returns there is no reason the IRS can't. Call me paranoid, but my fears were realized and my cautiousness may have helped me never have any personal identity issues. Better safe than sorry.

 

Thanks for the heads up! I totally forgot about this article, and Janice didn't tell me it was published.

I don't really have a problem with e-filing, but I agree that it should be accepted directly and be free. It's saving the IRS money, so why charge us for it?

Besides, I owe taxes, so why speed up them taking my money :)