By now everyone (including the dog) has heard about Efiling your tax return, mainly because the IRS has been pushing it the last few years. This year they have been even more proactive, requiring preparers who prepare more than 100 tax returns to efile their clients’ returns unless the client signs a form saying they refuse to efile. Next year the number goes down to more than 10, so all preparers will be efiling, which actually is not a bad thing. About 5 years ago my wife was afraid about data security with efiling, so we paper filed our return. Guess what? The IRS lost part of our return, so I had to mail it again. Maybe they were trying to convince me and my wife to efile. Well, it worked, I have efiled my return ever since. If you paper file, there is a person opening the envelope, who then gives it to a key-puncher who puts it into the system. I am sure they do their best, but it is like the guy behind the counter at 7-11; they are thinking about getting off and going out or the weekend or their boyfriend or girlfriend. With all that to think about why would they think about inputting your tax return quickly and correctly? About 15 years ago there was a scandal in the IRS office in Philadelphia when tax returns were supposedly found in a bathroom. The IRS has denied it ever happened, but it was a scary thought. Here is the link to an article:
http://articles.latimes.com/1985-04-11/news/mn-11754_1_missing-tax-returns
This was an isolated incident that may or may not have happened, but it proves a point; efiling takes out the middlemen in your tax return getting into the IRS computers. So unless you tell your preparer not to efile, your return will be efiled, which is actually a good idea.