How to File Your Taxes Online (Often for Free)

For whatever reason, many Americans are terrible procrastinators when it comes to filing their taxes. They wait until the last possible moment to begin doing them, and then rush to the post office to get there before the doors close at 5:00 PM on April 1th to send in their tax return. Filing one's taxes online won't eliminate any of the procrastination associated with getting one's 1040 form filed, but it does make filing taxes a lot easier to do.

Currently the Internal Revenue Service is offering a free e-file service for about 60% of all tax-payers. If you make above a certain income level, you'll have to pay for the service, but otherwise it's the way to go if it's a free service to you. Your tax-return will get filed much quicker than if you send it in the old fashioned way. You'll not only save the time of the tax-return being mailed, but the forms themselves will actually be taken care of much quicker. You can learn more about the IRS's free e-file service at www.irs.gov.

A lot of state governments have followed the IRS's lead in allowing their citizens to file taxes online. Currently there are more than 20 states that now let you file your state taxes directly through the state's websites, and all for free. In order to determine whether or not your state offers filing of state taxes online, head on over to the Tax Administrators Website at www.taxadmin.org

In addition to the IRS's website, there are a number of companies that are offering their own e-file services for both state and federal tax returns. TaxAct offers free tax-preparation software, but to file electronically they will charge you $7.95 for a federal return, or you can file both your state and federal returns for $19.95. eSmart Tax is another service that offers electronic tax returns. The filing fees range from as low as $5.00 for a simple 1040EZ state form, to $15.00 for the 1040 federal form.

TurboTax, a very popular tax product, is actually free for people with adjusted gross incomes under $25,000. Otherwise you'll have to pay anywhere from $9.95 to $49.95 for their products depending on what you're interested in. It's essentially the de-facto standard for filing one's taxes electronically.

If you've never filed your taxes electronically before, now is a great time to start. Filing your taxes online will prevent you from making arithmetical mistakes since it calculates those for you, will find you additional tax deductions you may not have known about, and save you a lot of un-necessary processing time.