Whether you are living in the US or abroad, efiling your tax return has many advantages.
The first advantage is a faster refund. If the return is efiled, then the IRS receives and processes the return automatically and therefore the refund is issued much faster.
The second advantage to efiling is payment options. If you are efiling, you can add payment options such as an automatic payment date which cannot be included in a paper file.
Accuracy is another reason to efile. An efiled tax return must be complete and free of errors, which saves time and adds an automatic final review of the return. Paper filed returns are more likely to contain error which can waste time and money.
The final reason why to efile is for security. Sending returns in the mail presents possible security risks which are not present when efiling.
While it is often advantageous to efile your tax return, there are some situation when efiling is not possible. One such scenario is when the taxpayer is married to a nonresident alien without an acceptable taxpayer identification number (TIN). Without an acceptable TIN, the IRS will not accept an efiled return, and therefore the taxpayer must paper file.
Another such situation where a taxpayer cannot efile is when the taxpayer is filing amended returns. Amended returns must be paper filed. In addition, late returns too must often be paper filed.
Ask us if you have any questions about efiling your 2015 tax return.
