Efile vs USPS Costs

Forum|Forum|4 months ago
February 20, 2026
2 replies
27 views

Intuit charges $25 to efile a state return.

I mail mine Priority Mail Certified Return Receipt for less than half that:

Postage: ca. $1.90

Certified Fee: $5.30

Physical Return Receipt: $4.40

Total: $11.60

It's a no-brainer.

Not A Product Question

SteamTrain

Level 15

True...for those who the extra $$ are critical.

But...BUT...it can take a paper filed tax return a couple months to get processed....along with funding cuts that have reduced IRS paper processing staff.

Then...it took my brother a couple extra months to get his paper filing corrected when an IRS processing employee accidentally entered one of his 1040 numbers on the wrong line as they have to type the paper data into their computer processing system.

Your choice to do what you want.

____________*Answers are correct to the best of my knowledge when posted, but should not be considered to be legal or official tax advice.*

romadAuthor

Level 4

I efiled my FEDERAL return. Intuit's excessive fee for state filing is the problem as it takes a large chunk out of people's refunds. BTW, states don't usually sit on returns unlike the IRS slugs.

Edit: Oh TWICE the IRS slugs CASHED our tax payments then in November said we had NOT filed! Turned out the IRS office charged with processing tax returns were depositing payments but then tossing the returns aside. I hope several IRS slugs were fired over that. Fortunately the different office that was charged with checking up on supposed non-filers just asked us to send copies to them. I did along with photocopies of the return receipts showing the signature and date the returns were originally received.