When it comes to being a United States citizen, one of the
absolute cornerstones of civic involvement is the fact that you
must pay your income taxes each year at both the state and
federal levels. In the past, Americans had to fill out complex
paper based forms that ate up a lot of time and could just about
cramp your hand trying to fit all of the numbers needed into the
slots provided. The federal Internal Revenue Service then had to
transcribe these tax returns into their computer systems, a
process that ate up a lot of time and human resources for the
government, but also caused taxpayers some stress hoping that
their penmanship would be legible enough and that none of their
numbers would be transposed during the process. Today there is
an easier way to go about things, when you use an efile tax
return, not only do you end up making fewer math mistakes
because everything is checked digitally, but you also cut down
on the workload for the IRS. This means your return is processed
quicker than ever before and as a result, your tax refund can
get to you in record time.
While efiling has been available since 1986, based on a system
developed by the IRS in the late 1960's, it was formerly not at
all commonplace for an average citizen to take advantage of this
route because most of us did not even realize it existed. After
the rise of the web to prominence, many came to feel more
comfortable submitting their tax returns using an efile tax
return because it is actually safer than mailing the paperwork
in by hand. In 2007 alone, more than 79 million US citizens used
the efile method to file their taxes, but that number is still
rising because nearly 90 million taxpayers came to embrace the
system by 2009. While the overall number of tax returns filed is
up, it is still remarkable that over the last ten years, the
number of returns filed using this new method has skyrocketed by
almost 170%. No matter how complex a tax situation is or what
amount you expect to get on a refund, the efile solution is a
very solid one that saves you time and adds security to the
process of filing your taxes. This is one fact that Americans
have come to accept and take advantage of because we'd all love
to get our refunds back quicker so that we can put them to good
use.