Tag: IRS

Tax Forms 2016

- Bill Leave a comment

taxes

As February 10th 2016, all Davenport Libraries have your FEDERAL 1040 tax forms AND instructions.

The IRS did not furnish libraries with instruction booklets in recent years due to Congressional budget cuts.

Quantities are limited, so please visit soon!

 

The IRS has suggested the following alternate methods

• IRS.gov/Forms – to view and download
• IRS.gov/orderforms – to order tax products to be delivered by mail
• 1-800-829-3676 – to order tax products to be delivered by mail

The State of Iowa has eliminated the short form and stopped providing paper forms to libraries some years ago.

Happy filing!

Tax forms 2012

- Bill Leave a comment

Don’t kill the messenger.

I find myself in the dubious position of informing the tax paying populace that without action on your part, you will not be receiving a paper Iowa tax form. No matter what boxes you checked last year, you need to weigh your options if you choose to do it on paper and PLEASE do not wait until April 17th.

The Iowa Department of Revenue wants you to efile, and they’re not being cryptic about it. Iowa is tightening belts to eliminate postage and printing costs of essentially sending every citizen a magazine.

You may choose to:
-Call forms order line at 1-800-532-1531 (EASIEST and FREE.)  Limit of one.
-Print forms yourself from www.iowa.gov/tax. The online form is fillable.
-Request a form by e-mail at IowaTaxForms@Iowa.gov
-Make photocopies of the long or short form from the ones we’ve laminated at every building

Federal forms are trickling in as of this moment. There are currently no federal instruction booklets. They are projected as arriving in early February  http://www.irs.gov/formspubs/article/0,,id=104740,00.html

And, as the faithful paper filers know, public libraries like DPL are pretty much the only place to find tax forms.  Some public libraries are even dropping out of this service.

1040 Fever

- Bill Leave a comment

Have you caught it yet?

We finally received the 1040 Instructions at the Davenport Public libraries, for which the phone has been ringing nearly continuously.

Due to 11th-hour filibustering at the end of the legislative session, the IRS had to edit/print paper tax publications and reprogram the computer processing systems.   Do not expect leniency on getting your return in, however.  E-filing will begin in mid to late February and the deadline stands at April 18th.

If you didn’t receive a print publication in the mail this year, it may be because you didn’t paper file last year.  The cost-cutting measure saved millions of dollars in postage and paper stock, albeit with some confusion.

Outside of the IRS office, libraries are the only place where you can get forms if for some reason you still haven’t attempted filing online.  Though a slower and typically less-accurate process, some people prefer the paper method.

Tax Man Cometh

- Bill Leave a comment

Suppose its time for that blog post again…

Our tax forms arrived a little bit late this year, but we just assembled the displays at Main and Fairmount.

Outside of the IRS office, libraries are the only place where you can get forms if for some reason you still haven’t attempted filing online.  Though a slower and typically less-accurate process, some people prefer the paper method.  We stock the federal and state forms as a service, though the chute gets narrower every year as they try to corral the populace as a whole into e-filing.

New this year is the:

Schedule L (Standard Deduction for Certain Filers – it isn’t as simple anymore since there are new add-on deductions on top of it) and

Schedule M (Making Work Pay Credit)

Nachos

- Bill 1 Comment

taxesNow that I have your attention, it’s tax season. Hey, don’t kill the messenger.

Davenport Public Library tries to accommodate taxpayers that are e-file friendly, as well as those that need paper forms. For the record, the feds would greatly prefer that you do so electronically. 58% did so last year, resulting in faster filings and quicker returns… according to the IRS.

On the paper side, the Davenport Public library buildings are one of the few places which still distribute tax forms and publications you can use to prepare your return. The post office stopped this service in 2006. Though not a federal agency like the post office, we got a pallet of 50 cases last week. If the form you need is not one of the standard issue we stock in our displays at Main and Fairmount, one of the crack reference staff can help you locate it on the IRS’s labyrinthine site.

Most employers will be giving you your W2’s this month, if they haven’t already. Put it on the corner of your desk, but unlike last year, don’t wait until April 15th.