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Parenting & Technology: Less than Taxing Tips for E-Filing

2. Head to the Source: www.irs.com. Free and fast (with high speed Internet), irs.com provides a Tax Help Center, Personal Finance Center and a Tax Forms Center, offering tips on everything from back tax help to tax payment plans to online forms. The site also lists the IRS "Dirty Dozen," the top twelve scams to watch out for when preparing your taxes.

3. Do Some Research: www.taxsites.com. This site offers consumer product reviews and free demos on tax preparation software for individuals, families and business professionals. Remember, it's always safer to go with software whose name you're familiar with. And if you decide to hire a tax preparer, you can also do a simple Google search to find information on whether your tax preparer is licensed and if they have a history of negative complaints. Remember, each state has its own official board of accountancy and their Web site addresses usually end in .gov or .us.

4. Get Prepared: Gather your tax information around you so you don't have to stop and search for a missing document. Head to IRS-recommended "Free File Alliance" sites like www.efile.com or www.eztaxreturn.com to get started. These sites are secure and offer step-by-step instructions.

5. Hit Send: The IRS will provide an official acknowledgement that your return was received. You can request direct deposit for quick access to your return, or authorize an electronic funds withdrawal from your savings or checking account or use a credit card if you owe money.

6. Save Data Delete Stress: Back up, back up, back up. Accidents will happen, but losing a year's worth of tax records should not be one of them. Purchase removable media such as floppy disks, CDs, DVDs or even an external hard drive and regularly copy important information accordingly.

7. Protect Your Returns: The only thing worse than no tax refund would be losing your financial records to a virus or inadvertently sharing those records with the outside world.
- Protect yourself and your system with the latest anti-virus/anti-spyware software such as Norton Antivirus or McAfee VirusScan Plus.
- Install effective wireless security and firewalls
- Create passwords in combinations of numbers and letters and change them frequently

Now that the computer allows you to do more than just office work, I realize how important it is to find out what resources are available online to simplify and expedite everyday tasks. Remember, it is never too late to learn to safely and securely navigate your way online whether for easy tax filing or simply for fun.

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