Don't Mess With Taxes

We made it through the first week of March. Have you filed your taxes yet?

You’ll get no judging from me. I usually file our tax return on April 15 or get an extension, so I’m in no position to chide anyone for being a tax procrastinator.

But by the end of February, 54.4 million taxpayers had sent the Internal Revenue Service their returns. And most of those — 51.2 million — arrived electronically.

Nearly 24 million of those returns were electronically filed by tax professionals for their clients. The remaining 27+ million were e-filed by individuals.

Those numbers are down a bit from the same time frame last filing season, but they are trending in the direction the IRS wants. It’s been the tax agency’s goal for years to get as many people as they can convince to electronically file.

IRS’ 36th e-filing anniversary: In fact, the IRS has been working on that for exactly 36 years and two days.

It was on March 5, 1989, the agency expanded its original e-filing pilot program. That year, according to the New York Times' "A Headline From History" feature (image below) that ran this Wednesday, March 5th, the IRS was expecting two million Americans to file their returns electronically.

"For taxpayers, the chief attraction is faster refunds," the newspaper wrote back then.

Rapid refunds remain the main allure today. But as the tax code has gotten more complicated, individuals and their tax preparers have come to appreciate the tax software that facilitates completing the forms and then e-filing them.

So, if you’ve yet to file your 2024 return, the IRS continues to recommend that you do so electronically.

E-filing for free: And if you're doing your taxes yourself, there are four popular ways you might be able to do so for free.

This year, eight tax software companies are participating in Free File.

Qualifying taxpayers in 25 states can use Direct File, the IRS’ own tax preparation and e-filing program.

If you want more personal tax help, but can’t afford to hire a paid preparer, the staff at a Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) or Tax Counseling for the Elderly (TCE) program in your community are happy to help.

If you’re a member of the U.S. armed forces, check out the online MilTax service.

You can read more about each of these free federal tax preparation and e-filing options in my Jan. 27 post 4 ways to file your taxes for free. You also might want to take a look at my Feb. 19 post on free online state tax filing options.

Both of those items are on the respective January and February tax tips pages. I mention that because I finally posted the March tax tips page this afternoon, which is my excuse (today) for the lateness of this post.

But we still have more than five weeks until the April 15 tax filing and paying — the IRS recommends e-paying, too — deadline. So check out the tax tips, and if you can, take care of your taxes for free.

You also might find these items (also on tax tip pages) of interest:

• 7 tips for first-time tax return filers
• 10 reasons to file your tax return early
• 5 reasons to wait to file your tax return
• 6 reasons to file a federal tax return even if you don’t have to

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