ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, January 4, 1997 TAG: 9701060025
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: Associated Press
JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT you'd opened your last package, there's one more; but this one's not from Santa, it's from Uncle Sam.
Ho, ho, ho. Send in your dough.
More than 65 million Americans are receiving holiday greetings from the Internal Revenue Service. Thursday was the first official delivery date for 1996 tax packages, although some postmasters itching to rid their warehouses of the documents delivered them earlier.
The good news for filers planning to use last year's return as a guide for preparing this year's is there are few changes. Most tax law changes enacted last year did not take effect immediately.
However, there are some procedural changes this year:
*Telephone filing has been expanded to include many married couples without dependents, and recipients of unemployment compensation. Previously only single people with job and interest income were eligible.
*It's easier to get a tax refund directly deposited into your bank account.
*The IRS now has the authority to deny personal exemptions, the earned income credit and the dependent care credit to taxpayers who do not provide accurate Social Security numbers for themselves, their spouses and dependents.
As usual, the returns are due April 15. By the end of this month, taxpayers should receive documents with information needed for filing, such as forms W-2, 1098 and 1099.
About a third of this year's booklets - 22 million - do not have a tax return form. Instead, they have a personal identification code and instructions necessary for filing with a 10-minute call on a touch-tone phone. Last year, TeleFile booklets also included a Form 1040EZ for taxpayers who preferred to file the old-fashioned way - on paper, by mail.
But the number of filers opting to use the telephone - 2.8 million - fell a bit short of the 3 million goal set by the IRS. So this year, the 1040EZs were left out of TeleFile packages.
Taxpayers who really do not want to use the telephone must search for a 1040EZ or its more complicated cousins, forms 1040A and 1040. They are available at IRS offices, banks, post offices and libraries, and also over the Internet - at http://www.irs.ustreas.gov - or by fax at (703) 487-4160.
``We're trying every way we can to get taxpayers who are eligible, to file by phone,'' IRS spokesman Frank Keith said. The agency anticipates a significant increase, he said.
Also, for the first time, the IRS is allowing telephone filers to get their refunds deposited directly into their bank accounts. For paper filers, there's a new space on returns to ask for direct deposit. You do not need to fill out a separate form, as you did last year.
Other changes for 1996 returns:
*Inflation adjustments: Exemptions for yourself, your spouse and dependents have been increased by $50 to $2,550; the standard deduction by $100 to $4,000 for single people and by $150 to $6,700 for couples. The new standard mileage rate for business use of a car is 31 cents a mile, up from 30 cents.
*Earned income credit: The credit amount and income eligibility range have been increased. Taxpayers with investment income, such as interest or capital gains, of more than $2,200 no longer can claim the credit.
*Employer-paid tuition: Congress reinstated the exclusion for employer-paid tuition, which had lapsed at the end of 1994. W-2s for 1996 should reflect the exclusion of employer-paid undergraduate tuition, as well as tuition for graduate-level courses begun before July 1, 1996.
LENGTH: Medium: 70 linesby CNB