Most Americans asked find that they hate to do their tax filings and preparation. They treat it as a most hated chore. If you are among this group, you will be delighted to find that preparing online makes the whole job much easier.

As the saying goes the only things definite in life is "death and taxes". But doing your tax preparation and filing online will save you much time and effort.

With the ever increasing popularity of the internet, tax filing has become less daunting these days. Gone are the days when you used to make dreary errands to the post office or tax office in search of the latest payment schedules and forms; these days almost all tax forms are readily available in simple digital formats that ensure snappy processing.

Americans are now finding it useful to make use of advanced yet easy electronic filing or e-filing, an extremely popular filing method for making both federal as well as state return filing and payment.

The recent figures substantiate this fact. In the year 2003, electronic returns accounted for almost half of the total tax returns filed, of which 12 million returns were filed online and these figures are steadily growing by the day.

Electronic filing is faster and more efficient not just for the taxpayer but also for the local governments and the Internal Revenue agencies. While a 20% rejection is reported in paper tax returns only less than 1 percent online tax returns are rejected due to inaccuracy.

Since e-filed returns are so much more efficient and accurate, the IRS has received a mandate from congress to enable e-returns to be more than 80 percent.

Tax preparation software is increasingly being used by taxpayers to file their returns online. A survey conducted during 2002 by the NPD Group found that about 204 million dollars were spent on retail tax preparation products. The previous year showed that the previous year the figure was 180 million.

Be prepared to spend a bit more to upgrade your tax preparation software to reflect changes in laws and forms, as well as tax codes.

When you file online you eliminate the added expenses of upgrading your tax preparation software. Automatically you are connected with all the latest rates and are completely up to date in your electronic filing when you use the correct online tax preparation services. This is all done with the click of your computer mouse. Plus you are protected by advanced data protection and stringent privacy terms.

By filing electronically you also are helped to address you inquiries and get swift refunds, often on the same day! Thus you not only save money and time but are having a trusted tax service to support you.