Find Last-Minute Tax Tips Online

E-filers have some advantages and options, even in the countdown to April 15.

Mike Hogan, special to PCWorld.com

If you haven't filed your income taxes yet, you're not alone--especially online. Forget the U.S. Post Office at midnight: the online tax queues are getting crowded already.

Intuit reports that a quarter of those who prepare taxes using its TurboTax for the Web start after April 1 every year. Last year, about 200,000 digital taxpayers crowded into the last two days of the season. Intuit doesn't expect this year to be any different--except that there's about a 50 percent increase in people filing online.

Could you run into tax preparation problems as more people crowd onto tax-related Web servers? Timothy Christomos of Seattle, Washington thinks so. He was ready to file his return in March using TurboTax Deluxe. But neither he nor Intuit tech support could get the last-minute software update to download from the Web.

Chistomos blames inadequate server capacity. An Intuit spokesperson says the company has been through 18 tax seasons and builds in more capacity and redundancy than it can possibly need.

Sites Hold Up

Actually, the performance of tax site servers in general among Web servers, and of Intuit in particular, is among the best on the Net, says Heather Kroupa, product manager for public services at Keynote Systems, which measures site performance. Keynote computers in 25 major U.S. cities hit the TurboTax home page every 15 minutes between March 5 and April 5, and found no significant changes in its 100 percent availability and one second download times during the period.

Still, Christomos never did find the cause of his problem and only got his software updated through the intervention of Intuit's senior staff two weeks after he queried them.

And traffic is clearly building. AOL reports that use of its tax center is up 274 percent over last year, saying users have downloaded more than 4.75 million state and federal tax forms from its Government Guide site.

Murphy's Law says that data entry mistakes, hardware problems, and unanticipated glitches in software drivers and Web pages are more likely to happen when you're rushed. So, if you're taking it down to the wire, here are some things to keep in mind and some resources that may come in handy.

Delay and Pay

First, you delayed, so be prepared to pay extra. Intuit and H&R Block raised filing and some help service prices after March 31. Second Story Software's TaxACT Online site has the same rock-bottom prices, but offers little time-saving help.

If you haven't paid yet, you can find a comparison of tax software at "1040 With a Good Buddy" and of tax Web sites at "Guide to Do-It-Yourself Tax Sites".

Post-April 1 tests of the various services and download/upload routines of these online preparers have encountered no slowdowns beyond the usual thumb-twiddling during Web page downloads, even using a 56K modem on a 500-MHz PC. Only a few minor miscues surfaced when using H&R Block's Online Tax Program.

Naturally, you'll get quicker response with a broadband connection and more powerful PC. But, if time is precious, a desktop tax program (with e-filing capabilities) will beat a tax Web site every time--for more money, of course.

Last-Minute Advice

If you have a tax question under deadline, H&R Block and Intuit are ready to help with a click on the always-present links in their desktop and Web programs.

Of the two, H&R Block's system is quicker, easier, and more complete. Click the tax advisor link and H&R Block will answer questions by phone or e-mail, charging $20 for each incident. For $30, you can upload your completed return and an advisor will check it for accuracy and answer more questions.

For many dollars more, Block's Professional Tax Service option will walk you through the same questions, and then a Block advisor will fill out and review your forms and e-file your Online Tax Program return for you. Those prices start at $100 (a higher price since March 31) for any federal 1040; add another $30 for a state return and $30 to $100 for every additional schedule you use. For federal and state returns with capital gains and home business schedules, you'd pay $190, compared to OTP's $30 post-March 31 price tag.

Intuit's "Live Advice" link makes you join the online advice service Keen, billed as "a live advice community" whose 7 million members cover topics from e-Bay shopping to puppy training. You set up an account with funds from a credit card or bill-paying service, and get a $5 credit toward your first three minutes worth of telephone or online chat advice.

You then search through a list of advisors with different rates and times of availability and a wide variety of backgrounds. Prices range from 50 cents to $5 per minute, but they all seem to cluster around $2 per minute. To beat Block, your problem would have to be solved in 13 minutes.

Extension Options

If you get right up to the deadline, consider this: It took 2 and 1/2 hours just to print out my rather long return on an inkjet printer. Next comes the line at the Post Office.

The alternative is e-filing, which shouldn't take more than a few minutes. To e-file through one of the tax programs or tax preparation Web sites, you create a pin by typing in last year's gross adjusted income and your birth date, create a PIN number, and send your return.

Finally, if you just can't get it together this week, a less-than-desirable fallback is to file by April 15 for an extension until August 15. You can download, print out the necessary extension application--Federal Form 4868 for individuals--from within the tax programs and websites or by going directly to the IRS Web site and typing "4868" into the Forms and Publications Finder.

The catch is that Uncle Sam wants you to pony up any money you owe when you file the extension or he'll levy those infamous interest fees and penalties. That can be hard to determine if you don't go most of the way toward completing your return.

Your options are to simply overpay tax owed based on some guesstimate from your last year's return or let Uncle Sam hold onto your tax refund for another four months. Either way, he wins--as usual.