Sacramento Bee: IRS accepts e-filing delay
Filed under: Earth 911 - April 19, 2007
Popular TurboTax stalled, so deadline is extended till tonight.
By Clint Swett - Bee Staff Writer
Published 12:00 am PDT Thursday, April 19, 2007
Was your TurboTax return torpedoed by electronic delays? Untold numbers of taxpayers nationwide who were unable to file their return electronically by Tuesday’s deadline using Intuit Inc.’s popular software won’t be penalized, the Internal Revenue Service said Wednesday.
Instead, those stymied this week by Intuit’s clogged e-filing system have until midnight tonight to submit their federal tax return online.
For those filing state taxes, Denise Azimi, a spokeswoman for the state Franchise Tax Board, said TurboTax users who had difficulty using e-filing also will not be penalized. She said the state had not set a deadline for when those returns needed to be submitted.
Officials of Intuit, the Mountain View company that makes TurboTax, told the Associated Press they don’t know how many taxpayers were unable to file because company servers were overwhelmed by last-minute filers. But at its peak Tuesday, they said Intuit was processing 50 to 60 returns per second.
Typically, it takes only a few minutes after hitting the submit button for TurboTax users to get a confirmation. By Tuesday evening, reports said it was taking hours.
Those affected by delays include consumers and tax preparers who used Intuit’s TurboTax, TurboTax Freedom, ProSeries and Lacerte products.
The company, which has sold more than 9.89 million copies of its TurboTax software for the 2006 tax year, handled more than 1 million returns on Tuesday, at least twice as many as the peak filing day last year. Turbotax is by far the dominant tax software purchased by consumers with 85.4 percent of the retail market, according to NPD Group, a research firm.
As of Wednesday afternoon, Intuit reported on its Web site that all problems had been resolved and it was processing returns at a normal rate.
Overall, the IRS said more than 75 million federal returns have been filed electronically this tax season, up from 73.5 million a year ago.
E-filers weren’t the only ones given a reprieve. The IRS also said taxpayers in New York and other Northeast states will get a one-week extension, no matter how they file, because of severe weather that hammered the region on April 16.
Earth Day credentials
Earth Day has traditionally been a stage where businesses burnish their green credentials. With global warming, high fuel prices and other environmental issues making headlines, this year’s activities are likely to have an even higher profile.
A number of firms have announced events and initiatives related to Earth Day, which is officially Sunday, April 22. Among them:
• SAFE Credit Union on Saturday is hosting a community recycling event where the public can bring up to two grocery bags of unneeded documents for free shredding and recycling. SAFE touts it as a way to safely recycle sensitive documents.
The shred fest will run from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the SAFE Credit Union, 4636 Watt Ave., North Highlands.
• Delta Air Lines, which is pledging to plant a tree for each of its 47,000 employees, said the company will make a contribution to the environmental group The Conservation Fund for each passenger who takes a Delta flight on Earth Day.
The airline also will sell passengers “carbon offsets” via a contribution to The Conservation Fund. Offsets are payments made to environmentally friendly projects to help counterbalance pollution — in this case air travel emissions.
Those purchasing the offsets, which will be available starting in June, will pay an additional $5.50 for a domestic round-trip flight and $11 for an international round trip.
• Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has established a “Live Better Index” in which it tracks purchasing habits of its U.S. customers, aimed at promoting environmentally friendly products.
The most popular products are compact fluorescent light bulbs, organic milk, organic baby foods and recycled or environmentally packaged paper products.
In addition, several Web sites are helping consumers find convenient places to recycle computers, cell phones and electronics. Among them are gcycle.org and earth911.org.