Why does the Internal Revenue Service encourage us to file our income tax returns electronically? The answer is quite simple. Because they can process electronic returns faster and less expensively than paper returns. But that begs another question. If it is less expensive for the IRS to process electronic returns than paper returns, why do we have to pay extra to file electronically?

E-filing costs ten dollars or more whether you pay it directly or it's included in the cost of your tax-filing software. Filing by mail only costs about a dollar for most people (postage, envelope, paper and printing). E-filing is more convenient for most of us too, but that doesn't justify our having to pay about ten times the cost of filing by mail.

Each year I prepare and file three returns: my own, my mother's and my wife's mother's. It took me less than an hour to print the returns, address the envelopes and mail the returns. I saved about 27 dollars. Until the IRS lowers the cost of e-filing to about that of filing by mail, I will continue to file by mail.

The current charge for e-filing is just another tax.

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