As a tax enthusiast and Internet aficionado, you probably already know this, but here’s some supporting data from a company that tracks Web trends: We like e-filing.
Compete.com recently asked members of its panel how they filed their returns last year and what they plan to do this year. In 2006, 23 percent said they used PC software and e-filed. This filing season, 24 percent plan to take that route, as shown in the company’s colorful pie chart below.
Another 22 percent plan to use the Web and e-file, again a 1 percent bump over last year’s choice of online tax prep and filing.
Compete blogger Mike Perlman notes, "Clearly a 1 percent growth rate is not exactly a signal of a vast shift to the Internet for tax preparation."
But Compete also found increasing activity at major online tax sites year over year. As these sites continue to enhance user-friendly functions, online tax preparation resources will undoubtedly expand.
And paid preparers, as indicated by the big purple slice of the tax pie above, still command a large chunk of tax-time business. Again, that percentage is almost identical to the number of filers who got professional tax help last year. You can see other results and cool graphs from the survey here.
Don’t Mess With Taxes readers, not surprisingly, are ahead of the curve. In a couple of polls earlier this year, 58 percent of you said you’ll do your taxes yourself using software and 67 percent said they would e-file their returns.
Over at the IRS: The Compete analysis also found that IRS.gov (the official site, not some wannabe’s page) generated significantly more site traffic than any private online tax provider.
IRS stats confirm the agency’s Web popularity. Almost 76 million people have visited the IRS’ Internet site so far this season. That’s up 9 percent from last year.
The Web visits coincide with increased e-filings. Through early March, the number of overall e-filed returns increased by about 5 percent from last year. Returns prepared by taxpayers at their home computers jumped by 8 percent.
However, the Free File program, through which taxpayers with adjusted gross incomes of $52,000 or less can e-file at no cost, is a bit behind last year’s pace. Nearly 2.6 million taxpayers have used the program through March 13, but that’s about a 4 percent drop from Free Filers during the same period last year.
The Free File program has come under some fire, as noted in this previous blog entry, but IRS officials remain optimistic.
"Several factors are behind Free File usage this year. It started out slowly, but the numbers are increasing each week," said IRS Commissioner Mark W. Everson. "We believe some Free File users are switching over to other parts of our e-file program, which continues to grow this year."
Attaboy Everson & Co. Keep the e-dream alive. There’s still a little over a month to go and millions of us who’ve yet to file.
When we finally are forced to get to our annual tax task, a lot of us will no doubt turn to our computers, for tax prep and e-filing, and bump up IRS stats even more.
