Electronic Filing

[Randy W]

Thought I'd try it this year with the IRS Free File Fillable Forms. It's completely free, and available to anyone as long as you're covered by the available forms. For me, it saved a $28USD EMS fee, and a 1 to 2 week delay for it to show up at the IRS.

 

Problems were - it only supports rounding off to the nearest dollar. That is, each amount you enter is immediately rounded off. I don't like this, since it changes the tax return relative to what's in your records. No big deal, though.

 

2) It required a 5 digit US ZIP code, even for a foreign address. Took me a few tries, but I entered a '00000' and it took.

 

3) They require a U.S. telephone number for the electronic bank draft, but didn't tell me. The error message said something cryptic, like 'Bank Rule Error'. I suppose I could have entered (000)00-00000, but I've got a Skype number that I used.

 

Each error is discovered only when you submit it to the IRS, and get the error message back about 20 minutes later. I'm sure it's real easy to fall into a black hole where they won't accept your return, until you fix some stupid error that you can't find anywhere.

 

I expect this is only of interest to those of us in China, since it's MUCH easier to fill out the returns yourself and mail them in.

[dan1984]

Thought I'd try it this year with the IRS Free File Fillable Forms. It's completely free, and available to anyone as long as you're covered by the available forms. For me, it saved a $28USD EMS fee, and a 1 to 2 week delay for it to show up at the IRS.

 

Problems were - it only supports rounding off to the nearest dollar. That is, each amount you enter is immediately rounded off. I don't like this, since it changes the tax return relative to what's in your records. No big deal, though.

 

2) It required a 5 digit US ZIP code, even for a foreign address. Took me a few tries, but I entered a '00000' and it took.

 

3) They require a U.S. telephone number for the electronic bank draft, but didn't tell me. The error message said something cryptic, like 'Bank Rule Error'. I suppose I could have entered (000)00-00000, but I've got a Skype number that I used.

 

Each error is discovered only when you submit it to the IRS, and get the error message back about 20 minutes later. I'm sure it's real easy to fall into a black hole where they won't accept your return, until you fix some stupid error that you can't find anywhere.

 

I expect this is only of interest to those of us in China, since it's MUCH easier to fill out the returns yourself and mail them in.

 

I looked into filing this way this year as well too, but then, like you said, I got too worried my return would end up in a black hole somewhere, or, encounter some other problem that would be difficult for me to try and fix while halfway across the planet. In the end I once again used Turbo Tax - caused me a few dollars, but, painless, never had any problems, and don't need to daily with mailing anything in.

[newacct]

I use Free File Fillable Forms every year. It always gets accepted really quickly and I get my refund quickly. Much quicker and easier than printing them out and mailing it in, and it saves postage (I'm a cheapskate). (Though it might just be that I like filling out forms on computers, and I know exactly how I intend to fill out the form.)

 

About rounding it off, in filling out your tax form, you have the option of either including cents in everything, or round it off to the nearest dollar for everything (it says so in the instructions). All tax software I know will round everything to the nearest dollar anyway. Although it might be the case that doing it with cents will get a few more cents of money back to you in some cases, it's not worth the postage to do it by mail just for those few cents.

 

I didn't know about the issues with ZIP and phone number, probably because I'm in the U.S. and always had a refund. I have heard stories though of people who've received cryptic "XML errors" or something like that because something didn't match. I can see how the sometimes unintuitive interface and lack of documentation or tech support for the site might make it frustrating for some people.

[Randy W]

Something like this -

 

Field/Xpath: /efile:Return[1]/efile:ReturnData[1]/efi…

Issue : Business Rule X0000-005 - The XML data has failed schema validation.

 

I'm uncomfortable with the rounding because it makes the amounts filled in on the return become different from what's in my records. Just my own experience.

[newacct]

I'm uncomfortable with the rounding because it makes the amounts filled in on the return become different from what's in my records. Just my own experience.

 

Yeah, but why not fill out your records with the rounding also?

[Randy W]

 

I'm uncomfortable with the rounding because it makes the amounts filled in on the return become different from what's in my records. Just my own experience.

 

Yeah, but why not fill out your records with the rounding also?

 

I get statements and 1099-R's to the penny. No choice there, but that's exactly what I'd choose anyway. My spreadsheets don't round off either. A minor irritation, for sure.