Many Iowans already have their necessary tax information from their employers to start preparing their tax returns. Bert Dumars, director of Electronic Tax Administration at the IRS, says Free Filing is being offered on-line to people at certain income levels. Dumars says to go to the agency’s website " IRS.gov " to take part.
Dumars says there are links to the Free File program. They’ve partnered with 17 tax preparation software companies to offer free federal returns, and he says there’s a "Guide Me To A Service" wizard which will direct you to a vendor who can help you prepare your return. From there, Dumars says you can e-file for free. If you’re due a refund, he says e-filing will get it into your account usually within two to three weeks. He explains who is eligible for the Free File program.
Dumars says "Taxpayers with adjusted gross incomes of $52,000 or less can take advantage of Free File. That’s the cutoff. That’s actually 70-percent of all taxpayers are eligible. Nationwide, that’s 95-million people." Given what most Iowans make, he expects many people here to be using the service.
He says more than 39-thousand Iowa taxpayers took advantage of Free File last year and the median income in Iowa is just over 45-thousand dollars, so a large group of them can use the program this time.
The IRS is expecting one-point-four million individual returns from Iowans for the 2006 tax year with some 982-thousand of those filed electronically. That’s about 72-percent e-filing, one of the highest rates in the nation.