Lesson
In this lesson, you’ll learn about your options for filing your tax return yourself. There will be a short quiz at the end of this lesson to make sure you understand the material before moving onto the next lesson.
IRS Forms
The United States Government offers downloadable copies of all of the forms you’ll need to do your taxes. The IRS offers many accessible publications and forms as Section 508 accessible PDFs and as Braille or text.
Because the IRS processes all tax returns electronically, though, filing a tax return using paper forms will delay any tax refund you might receive. When the IRS receives a tax return on paper, an IRS employee will need to manually enter your data into their computer system. This could take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks depending on the amount of work that person has to do. You cannot receive a tax refund until your tax return has been processed by the IRS’s computer system.
Online Tax Preparation Software
Many companies offer online tax preparation software which can make it easy to independently complete a simple to moderately complex tax return by guiding you through a series of questions and scanning or importing images of common forms such as W2s and 1098s. Many blind users have reported good success with a variety of vendors, and most companies won’t charge you any fees until you’ve been able to successfully file a return, so there is little risk that you’ll be charged for an inaccessible product.
Using tax preparation software is the fastest way to receive a tax refund. Most tax preparation software allows you to file your tax return electronically, which places your tax return directly into the IRS’s computer system. That system can process many returns very quickly and can issue you a refund within a matter of days.
Some software options include: