E-Filing: The Wave of the Present

The Internal Revenue Service has released its latest numbers on the income tax filing for the 2013 tax year. And no doubt about it, e-file is king.

As of April 18, the IRS had received more than 131 million income tax returns – and a whopping 88 percent of those were e-filed. The applause you hear is the trees clapping.

Nearly 46 million of those e-filed returns were sent from home computers – and that’s more than the total from home computers for all of last year. Seems our customers have been very busy!

But for the really big numbers, you have to look in the Refund category. As of April 18, the IRS had released nearly 95 million refunds, whether by check or by direct deposit. The refunds totaled more than $254 billion (yes, that’s with a “B”), with the average refund $2,686 – a little above last year’s mark.

Return Redux

For some taxpayers, of course, the filing season isn’t over. First, some taxpayers opted for extensions for more time to file. But others – the IRS estimates as many as 5 million – will need to amend the 2013 tax return they’ve already sent in.

Form 1040X is the tool of choice for an amended return; wait until your original return has been filed and accepted before filing it. Log into your account and add Form 1040X to your electronic return. Fill out the form, entering the numbers from your original forms. Once Form 1040X has your original numbers—to let the IRS what you originally filed—you can make the changes wherever you need on other forms in your return.

Unfortunately, amended returns must be paper-filed, so your next step is to print out your modified return along with the completed Form 1040X and mail them to the address included in the form's instructions.

Allow up to 12 weeks for the amended return to be processed by the IRS.