This CPA is advocating snail-mail over e-file for taxes

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dolphinsaremammals
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Re: This CPA is advocating snail-mail over e-file for taxes

Post by dolphinsaremammals »

john94549 wrote:For years, I did my own and mailed the returns, certified mail. I could never get a certified mail receipt from the IRS in Fresno, but I did get one from the FTB in Sacramento. The person from the FTB actually had very good handwriting, spelled his name as required, and there was a date/time stamp. I was impressed. From Fresno (IRS), I got back a totally blank return receipt. So, if you "mail it in" to the IRS, you might want to explore options. At least with e-filing, your CPA has the electronic proof of receipt.
I have always sent my federal and state returns as signed receipt required, and I have always gotten those receipts.
JW-Retired
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Re: This CPA is advocating snail-mail over e-file for taxes

Post by JW-Retired »

dodecahedron wrote:
Yes, but note that someone who gets hold of your entire tax return may be able to do even more damage than just filing a bogus tax return, since your tax return contains so much additional information. An efile may have not only your name and SSN, but also bank account numbers (if you are doing direct deposit) and the names of financial institutions where you have accounts (on your 1099s), your address, etc.

The danger of insecure filing methods (paper or electronic) goes well beyond someone else filing a tax return in your name. With the information on your return, they may be able to apply for credit cards in your name, for example.

And this can be an issue whether you efile or paper file. Disgruntled and dishonest postal employers or tax department employees can get hold of that information. This cautionary tale shows what can happen (fortunately rarely.)

My take on this: a permanent civil service government employee has a LOT to lose (secure government job, pension, etc.) if he takes advantage of his position. A low-paid temp worker processing paper returns in a private outsourced company may not be screened as carefully and may feel he has less to lose. But there are no guarantees whatever you do.

So I will continue to stick to efiling (when I can.) Nothing is perfect, but I will hope for the best. At least it saves me time waiting on line at the PO and kills fewer trees. As for audits, I accept them as a necessary part of our system and I am prepared for them with well organized records.
Agree nothing is perfect but my take is the opposite. E-filing is a one-click super easy thing that we have done it in the past, but no more. Printing an extra 1040 copy to mail is also a trivial portion of the time it takes to do your taxes, and we go to post office pretty often anyway. To me, some temp postal worker making a one-off copy of my return seems like a vastly lower risk than my return being one of millions hacked from some hard drive they might pass through on the way to IRS. In many decades of mailing tax returns and mutual fund investments I can't recall ever losing anything. Before direct deposit, wife routinely mailed her pay check to the bank. It worked fine.

On the other hand, we were just recently one of ??? millions that had fraudulent charges on our credit card shortly after Home Depot was hacked. Anyway, we are trying to minimize our financial data going into or through the cloud: no debit cards, no tax or analysis programs with accounts access, paying most bills by check, tax payment/refund by check, computer backups on USB drives rotated through the safe deposit box. We will keep only a small number of automatic bill payments and use of electronic transfers for pension/SS/investment companies. If Vanguard gets hacked so be it. Nothing is perfect.
JW
ps: We are having another good rain storm in CA! :beer
Retired at Last
dolphinsaremammals
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Re: This CPA is advocating snail-mail over e-file for taxes

Post by dolphinsaremammals »

JW Nearly Retired wrote: ps: We are having another good rain storm in CA! :beer
:) :happy
travellight
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Re: This CPA is advocating snail-mail over e-file for taxes

Post by travellight »

I also had a problem with e-pay last month. I paid my state taxes electronically being very careful to follow the instructions and only clicked once. When they took the payment electronically, they took it twice. It was $9000 and a tough hit to have it doubled. I called them and they at first said there was nothing they could do; I could apply the extra amount as a credit to future taxes. I said that can't be, I am not willing to loan the Franchise tax board 9k for many months interest free. They then checked and said they would have to apply it against my 2013 taxes and that would then generate a refund. So, I am now on week 3 awaiting a refund. I called Friday since it was taking so long and they said they made a mistake and had corrected it just 2 days earlier to apply it against 2013 so check back in another 2-3 weeks.

I will never pay by e-pay again. Too much direct access to my goods. Good thing I didn't do that with Federal where my quarterly payment was 42K. I sent that snail mail counting on inefficiency so that it is debited from my account at a later date.
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btenny
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Re: This CPA is advocating snail-mail over e-file for taxes

Post by btenny »

E-filing also has lots of issues IMO. My father in law sent his 1040 in via e-file 3+ years ago. Well it bounced because he used the wrong $ total for a password to verify the E-filing. He had done a 1040X revision the year before and forgot the $ was different between the two returns. Well the IRS rejected his return and sent him a email to revise the return to his old email account.

Well he never looked at that old email account. And the IRS never took out his IRS payment so he never paid his final taxes that year. Well a few months later he got a notice asking about his return (he had paid 3 quarters of taxes) and suggesting a big tax penalty for non-payment. So then he went looking and found the notice and started the filing process over. Well he ended up paying extra $$ in penalties and spending lots of hours writing explanation letters to the IRS on his error. It was not a good experience. Obviously he made mistakes but not everyone is good at all those computer required details necessary to doing a perfect e-file. By the way he made a similar mistake the next year as well but read his email so correcting it only took 2 weeks but the return was still late that year as well. Had he paper filed his returns both would have arrived and been paid on time.
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Epsilon Delta
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Re: This CPA is advocating snail-mail over e-file for taxes

Post by Epsilon Delta »

dolphinsaremammals wrote:
john94549 wrote:For years, I did my own and mailed the returns, certified mail. I could never get a certified mail receipt from the IRS in Fresno, but I did get one from the FTB in Sacramento. The person from the FTB actually had very good handwriting, spelled his name as required, and there was a date/time stamp. I was impressed. From Fresno (IRS), I got back a totally blank return receipt. So, if you "mail it in" to the IRS, you might want to explore options. At least with e-filing, your CPA has the electronic proof of receipt.
I have always sent my federal and state returns as signed receipt required, and I have always gotten those receipts.
I'm not sure why people like those return receipts. What I need is proof of mailing, I don't care all that much if the IRS gets it or not*. The receipt I get from the post office, and the matching record the post office keeps, is proof of mailing. Proof of mailing stops any timeliness penalties. Sure if my check isn't cashed or the refund doesn't show up in a couple of months I'll call the "where's my return" number and send the IRS a copy if needed, but there's no urgency for that.

*Edit to add, perhaps I put that badly. I do care in that if the IRS loses my return it's more work for me, but a return receipt does not help if the return gets lost after I have proof of mailing. It just means I can do the extra work a few months earlier.
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