4 ms·

I just file my taxes by hand and mail it in. Somewhat less concern with 3rd parties holding my information and losing it to leaks/hacks. It is free. A little

I just file my taxes by hand and mail it in. Somewhat less concern with 3rd parties holding my information and losing it to leaks/hacks. It is free. A little obnoxious but the forms do have instructions/directions.

fsmv 3y ago
I heard that this sometimes takes them much longer to process the returns that way. Has that been your experience? One time I reproduced the forms in a spreadsheet following the instructions and it wasn't much different from doing the online wizards. I would have liked to mail it in but I just paid to e-file anyway.
- practicemaths 3y ago
  My experience has been that it can be relatively faster. That is, the last time I filed online it took I think practically a year before they got to it (I think the year of the pandemic) I figure there's so few people filing by mail these days that they're able to process them faster than the huge amount of online filing. I'm guessing they're separate teams (online vs mail). However I have no idea. Regardless mailing has worked better for me the last couple years. Additionally I do not have to use the third party ID verify thing (might just be for accessing information on irs.gov) that I am just sure is going to have a breach and can not for the life of me fathom why our government (Federal) needs a private company to verify the identity of a citizen via government (State) resources.
  - bombcar 3y ago
    The IRS just does some very simple checking and then mails your refund (or accepts your payment) - the actual processing/checking of the return can happen months if not years later.
  - LamaOfRuin 3y ago
    My understanding is that it is generally under control now, but a couple years ago their processing of paper forms was in fact so backed up that the physical space was over capacity. There was a fair amount of news coverage of this, including photos of the cafeteria in one of their processing centers being packed with paper awaiting processing because there was nowhere else to put it. At one point they also basically declared paper processing bankruptcy and just told people if they had mailed something and were still waiting for a response to just send it again because the first one was probably a lost cause.
- downut 3y ago
  Now our family unit is not cash starved and can afford to wait, so in the past, before I started using the US Free Filing system I described in another comment, I always mailed in both US and AZ income tax forms. Sometimes it took a couple of months. The US form I think was pretty prompt occasionally. Now we're also not talking a lot of money. +- a couple of thousand, usually less. But you would have to compare apples to apples which would be the e-file fee vs. the compounded inflation rate for the time difference in receiving, presumably, your refund. I suspect it's a wash. You need to also factor in the ${turbotax} fee and/or the accountant, as well, if you don't actually fill out the forms yourself. Fun fact: We moved from AZ to GA last year, and dutifully filed in each state. I am pretty familiar with AZ due to filing our own taxes for most of 25 years, but GA is much more complex, verbose, and quite stupidly, even aggressively, vague. I produced a spreadsheet for my wife to evaluate that presented my first time interpretation of the GA partial residency filing. We're both B.S. ChE, she's an MS ChE, I'm a MS App. Math. So we know our numbers. The tables were low risk, low refund, medium risk, medium refund, high risk, high refund. She chose medium risk. Fine with me. Both AZ and GA refunded something like 50% higher than what I filed and expected. Some sort of emoji here.
- rdiddly 3y ago
  If you're looking for a fast turnaround I would recommend filing earlier in the period -- like as far in advance of April 15th as possible, i.e. as soon as you have all your supporting materials. As you get closer to April 15th, you are non-linearly further back in the queue. I can't really make an authoritative comparison of filing methods because I'm mostly a die-hard paper filer and have only ever e-filed maybe twice in my life at most. And it was long enough ago that I barely remember, and in fact never really cared, how fast my refund arrived. I embrace and savor the luxury of simplicity. When will my refund arrive? Answer: sound of one hand clapping. It's a reminder I put in the calendar for like, mid-June, to the effect of "Hey did I get my tax refund yet?" Usually the answer's, yep, and you dismiss the reminder. I can't be arsed (as they say in the UK) to be more interested in it than that.
- ghaff 3y ago
  Honestly, I’m rarely getting enough of a refund to care; I’m more commonly writing a check. In any case, I’m complicated enough I just outsource to an accountant. Yes it’s expensive but I’ve never had an issue even with very thick tax filings.
- Anon4Now 3y ago
  Yes - especially for my state returns here in Oregon. I am due a refund. I received a letter stating that they made an adjustment. They still haven't sent the refund.
- Izkata 3y ago
  I switched from paper to https://www.irs.gov/e-file-providers/free-file-fillable-forms https://www.irs.gov/e-file-providers/free-file-fillable-form... in 2021, which doesn't cost anything, and the online version has consistently been processed a month or two faster than the paper version.
rdiddly 3y ago
I'd go further and say it's less obnoxious than the alternatives thus far. It has always bothered me for example, having to enter into some weird murky relationship with a private company as a third party, in my communication with the government. (That's also true for the categorically similar but unrelated outrage of a few years back where you could get a better response from some agencies by engaging them on Twitter than you could through their actual communication channels.) And say what you will, the piece of paper doesn't try to "cleverly" redirect me to some irrelevant paid service. It has no functionality. I'm the one with all the functionality. And just to amplify your point about how it's free - Yeah there's no way I'm ever paying one red goddamn cent for any of this; I'm already paying the taxes!
saxonww 3y ago
Not sure it covers the 3rd party concerns, but freefilefillableforms has been around for a decade or longer. It's fillable PDFs of the IRS forms with all the instructions available, and basic calculation abilities. No restrictions on income, etc. but federal returns only. You get an email from them within 24 hours of whether your return was accepted or not. It's still obnoxious but for easy returns it seems better than buying turbotax or whatever people use instead.
- beej71 3y ago
  Some states do free fillable forms, as well.
bschwindHN 3y ago
I do them on paper as well. It doesn't take me too long and I hope it adds to their pain of processing it so they get along with implementing free (and good) digital solutions faster.
- Izkata 3y ago
  I use free fillable forms, an online version of the paper forms. They're pretty much exactly the same, just the online one does some basic math and copying values between steps for you.
  - bschwindHN 3y ago
    Oh nice, I'll be checking that out, thanks!
attentive 3y ago
There are standalone apps like turbotax that remove 3d party leaks/hacks concerns. You can still print and mail offline.
- cwbriscoe 3y ago
  Does it save the returns locally or on their servers?
  - attentive 3y ago
    locally, in case of TT it's optionally password protected. Also it can create pdf's with filled in forms to print.

fsmv 3y ago

I heard that this sometimes takes them much longer to process the returns that way. Has that been your experience? One time I reproduced the forms in a spreadsheet following the instructions and it wasn't much different from doing the online wizards. I would have liked to mail it in but I just paid to e-file anyway.

practicemaths 3y ago
My experience has been that it can be relatively faster. That is, the last time I filed online it took I think practically a year before they got to it (I think the year of the pandemic) I figure there's so few people filing by mail these days that they're able to process them faster than the huge amount of online filing. I'm guessing they're separate teams (online vs mail). However I have no idea. Regardless mailing has worked better for me the last couple years. Additionally I do not have to use the third party ID verify thing (might just be for accessing information on irs.gov) that I am just sure is going to have a breach and can not for the life of me fathom why our government (Federal) needs a private company to verify the identity of a citizen via government (State) resources.
- bombcar 3y ago
  The IRS just does some very simple checking and then mails your refund (or accepts your payment) - the actual processing/checking of the return can happen months if not years later.
- LamaOfRuin 3y ago
  My understanding is that it is generally under control now, but a couple years ago their processing of paper forms was in fact so backed up that the physical space was over capacity. There was a fair amount of news coverage of this, including photos of the cafeteria in one of their processing centers being packed with paper awaiting processing because there was nowhere else to put it. At one point they also basically declared paper processing bankruptcy and just told people if they had mailed something and were still waiting for a response to just send it again because the first one was probably a lost cause.
downut 3y ago
Now our family unit is not cash starved and can afford to wait, so in the past, before I started using the US Free Filing system I described in another comment, I always mailed in both US and AZ income tax forms. Sometimes it took a couple of months. The US form I think was pretty prompt occasionally. Now we're also not talking a lot of money. +- a couple of thousand, usually less. But you would have to compare apples to apples which would be the e-file fee vs. the compounded inflation rate for the time difference in receiving, presumably, your refund. I suspect it's a wash. You need to also factor in the ${turbotax} fee and/or the accountant, as well, if you don't actually fill out the forms yourself. Fun fact: We moved from AZ to GA last year, and dutifully filed in each state. I am pretty familiar with AZ due to filing our own taxes for most of 25 years, but GA is much more complex, verbose, and quite stupidly, even aggressively, vague. I produced a spreadsheet for my wife to evaluate that presented my first time interpretation of the GA partial residency filing. We're both B.S. ChE, she's an MS ChE, I'm a MS App. Math. So we know our numbers. The tables were low risk, low refund, medium risk, medium refund, high risk, high refund. She chose medium risk. Fine with me. Both AZ and GA refunded something like 50% higher than what I filed and expected. Some sort of emoji here.
rdiddly 3y ago
If you're looking for a fast turnaround I would recommend filing earlier in the period -- like as far in advance of April 15th as possible, i.e. as soon as you have all your supporting materials. As you get closer to April 15th, you are non-linearly further back in the queue. I can't really make an authoritative comparison of filing methods because I'm mostly a die-hard paper filer and have only ever e-filed maybe twice in my life at most. And it was long enough ago that I barely remember, and in fact never really cared, how fast my refund arrived. I embrace and savor the luxury of simplicity. When will my refund arrive? Answer: sound of one hand clapping. It's a reminder I put in the calendar for like, mid-June, to the effect of "Hey did I get my tax refund yet?" Usually the answer's, yep, and you dismiss the reminder. I can't be arsed (as they say in the UK) to be more interested in it than that.
ghaff 3y ago
Honestly, I’m rarely getting enough of a refund to care; I’m more commonly writing a check. In any case, I’m complicated enough I just outsource to an accountant. Yes it’s expensive but I’ve never had an issue even with very thick tax filings.
Anon4Now 3y ago
Yes - especially for my state returns here in Oregon. I am due a refund. I received a letter stating that they made an adjustment. They still haven't sent the refund.
Izkata 3y ago
I switched from paper to https://www.irs.gov/e-file-providers/free-file-fillable-forms https://www.irs.gov/e-file-providers/free-file-fillable-form... in 2021, which doesn't cost anything, and the online version has consistently been processed a month or two faster than the paper version.

rdiddly 3y ago

I'd go further and say it's less obnoxious than the alternatives thus far. It has always bothered me for example, having to enter into some weird murky relationship with a private company as a third party, in my communication with the government. (That's also true for the categorically similar but unrelated outrage of a few years back where you could get a better response from some agencies by engaging them on Twitter than you could through their actual communication channels.) And say what you will, the piece of paper doesn't try to "cleverly" redirect me to some irrelevant paid service. It has no functionality. I'm the one with all the functionality. And just to amplify your point about how it's free - Yeah there's no way I'm ever paying one red goddamn cent for any of this; I'm already paying the taxes!

saxonww 3y ago

Not sure it covers the 3rd party concerns, but freefilefillableforms has been around for a decade or longer. It's fillable PDFs of the IRS forms with all the instructions available, and basic calculation abilities. No restrictions on income, etc. but federal returns only. You get an email from them within 24 hours of whether your return was accepted or not. It's still obnoxious but for easy returns it seems better than buying turbotax or whatever people use instead.

beej71 3y ago
Some states do free fillable forms, as well.

bschwindHN 3y ago

I do them on paper as well. It doesn't take me too long and I hope it adds to their pain of processing it so they get along with implementing free (and good) digital solutions faster.

Izkata 3y ago
I use free fillable forms, an online version of the paper forms. They're pretty much exactly the same, just the online one does some basic math and copying values between steps for you.
- bschwindHN 3y ago
  Oh nice, I'll be checking that out, thanks!

attentive 3y ago

There are standalone apps like turbotax that remove 3d party leaks/hacks concerns. You can still print and mail offline.

cwbriscoe 3y ago
Does it save the returns locally or on their servers?
- attentive 3y ago
  locally, in case of TT it's optionally password protected. Also it can create pdf's with filled in forms to print.