Don't Mess With Taxes

If you live in one of the 43 states or the nation's capital, then in addition to filing your federal tax return you probably also must send a form (or two) to your state's tax collector.

In most cases, states use at least some federal tax return information as the basis for their returns. So if you do your taxes yourself, you're probably looking for a tax software option that can handle both.

The Internal Revenue Service and Free File Inc. say that their joint tax prep and e-filing venture Free File has some tax software company participants that can do that combination filing for you. If you qualify to use Free File this year — you generally do if your adjusted gross income is $69,000 or less — then definitely check out the free state filing possibilities there.

But you also might want to look at filing options directly with your state's tax department. Several of them, including Connecticut and North Carolina (for business returns), are already accepting tax returns.

Online filing options at state websites: The 43 states and District of Columbia that collect some type of individual income tax offer their residents online filing of tax returns, many at no cost.

Nineteen state have their own state tax return direct file websites. They are Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Utah and Wisconsin.

Another 20 jurisdictions offer free return filing in partnership with private software manufacturers. They are Arizona, Arkansas, Delaware, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia and Washington, D.C.

Four states have both their own direct state return websites and also offer select free file options through vendors. They are Alabama, California, New York and Pennsylvania.

No individual income tax, but other levies online: Seven states — Alaska, Florida, Nevada, South Dakota, Texas, Washington and Wyoming — have no individual state income tax at all, but they do collect other taxes from some of their residents.

To facilitate this, six of them (all but South Dakota) have online sites to take care of these tax transactions, such as payment of excise and sales taxes or franchise tax fees on the business side.

Even some more local jurisdictions within states, like my local county tax assessor-collector who gets my property tax payments each year, allow and even encourage taxpayers to go online to those sites to take care of those obligations.

The Texas Comptroller's website has general property tax info and, after a bit of searching, a link to my county tax office. Check your state's tax site to see if it has similar information about your local tax collectors' online accessibility.  

State tax data and payment options: Below are links to the various state tax filing and payment websites. Thanks to the Federation of Tax Administrators for doing the heaving lifting here.

While it's probably easier to go with a tax return preparation and electronic filing option that consolidates your state and federal tax responsibilities, it doesn't hurt to check out all possibilities, especially if you don't meet the federal free filing requirements.

If you just want other tax information for your state, this state tax department directory has links to those home pages.

You also might find these items of interest:

• Tax law changes in 2020 at federal and state levels
• Wyoming & New Jersey bookmark business tax climates
• Several states investigating TurboTax marketing methods

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