Tips as tax filing deadline quickly approaches

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (WSFA) - We are less than four weeks from the Tuesday, April 18th deadline to file your tax return.

The deadline to file your taxes is quickly approaching. Within the first week of the filing season, more than 174,000 Alabamians E-filed their returns. The Alabama Department of Revenue says E-filing is the way to go.

“It’s safer, it’s faster, that gets into our system quicker, we can process it quicker,” said Kathleen Abrams, Director of the Income Tax Administration Division at the Alabama Department of Revenue.

Kathleen Abrams, the department’s Director of the Income Tax Administration Division, says it will take eight to 10 weeks for the department to process the return. However, taxpayers must remember some things can hold it up. Double-check your Social Security number and look for typos and misspellings with your name. If there is an issue, the department will send you a letter. Abrams says to make sure you respond.

“Go ahead and do what we asked you to do in that letter. Otherwise, your refund is just going to sit there, and it’s not going to move until we verify your identity. Now if we write you and need additional information to verify some deductions, go ahead and get that information back to us as quick as possible,” said Abrams.

If you choose to pay someone to prepare your returns, Abrams says to do your homework.

“Look at their qualifications, look at the years they’ve been in business, check the IRS website. They’ve got a list of authorized default providers. Just do some legwork,” said Abrams.

There are some changes this year. So, parents, your return could look different.

“The threshold increase from 20,000 to 50,000 to get the $1,000 dependent exemption, and then for taxpayers with AGI over 50,000 but under 100,000, it’s $500. So for each dependent, and anybody with AGI over 100,000 is $300 per dependent. So those were the big changes.

To check on your refund, you can visit the Alabama Department of Revenue Department’s website or call 1-855-894-7391.

The Alabama Department of Revenue (ALDOR) is offering tax relief to Alabama taxpayers who reside or have a business in federally declared disaster areas in Alabama where damage was caused by severe weather in January. The relief measures mirror IRS measures in the same declared disaster areas.

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