Filing tax returns online in US

Since my wife was in the US for a few days last year, she has to file the US tax returns. Its kind of mandatory. Even if you have earned for a day in US, you are supposed to file a return. And the good thing is, you can file it online, using e-file. There are lot of sites which offer this facility of e-filing, but they charge you some $$ for this facility. But, if you go via the IRS site, you can file your federal return or the state-return or both for free. We chose taxengine.com via IRS site.

Well, the stuff is pretty simple. Its kind of a wizard. The site asks you a set of questions and you need to answer it. Enter all the details. It would take around 45 mins to 1 hour to enter all the details. Once done, you can submit you returns to IRS.

We did the filing, and when we submitted it, IRS rejected it saying that some info (EIC - earned income credit) was wrong!.. We corrected the data entered and resubmitted it. Right now, its waiting @ IRS for acceptance.

What I liked about the system is, its totally paper less. You even enter the details of W2 onto the system. No paper. And, the response too (accepted or rejected) is pretty fast. And if you have a US bank account, the refunds (if any) would be trasfered to directly to your account via EFT!. A check refund would take an additional week to be mailed. Normally, refunds would be isssued within 10 to 15 working days compared to months or years (some cases) in India !

In India, filing a return is still more or less paper based. Yes, even India has introduced electronic tax filing and the Tax Information Network (TIN), but its not yet fully mature. I guess, it will take couple of more years to work as it should!

Update : Our returns has been accepted @ federal.

1 comment | March 17th, 2005 at 05:09pm