Several Internet sites help make tax season less of a stress

Advertiser Staff and News Services

Spring is here, and one can hear birds chirping, the trade winds rustling through swaying palms and the whir of adding machines.

Yes, tax season is upon us — that magical time of the year when small-business people everywhere pore through their shoebox full of receipts, fret and curse over their tax return and then make a midnight dash to the post office with their filing.

This frantic, last-minute and haphazard approach to tax preparation is all too common, and many small businesses pay a price.

According to a recent survey by Intuit, a leading tax software company, nearly 40 percent of small-business owners polled have been penalized by the Internal Revenue Service for late or inaccurate tax filings, and pay an average penalty charge of $845. The survey also showed that some two-thirds of small businesses believed there were fewer than 10 government regulations that affected their businesses; and 15 percent had no idea how many regulations they needed to follow and meet.

In reality, small-business owners have to comply with an average of more than 50 government regulations — many of them new or recently revised — to satisfy their tax obligations, according to the IRS.

The Internet offers a wealth of resources to help business owners minimize or avoid these tax-time misunderstandings and hassles. From online forms to simplified reporting systems to electronic filing, the Web gives you access to superb tax guides and the latest tax rules. Here's a quick overview of the leading e-tax tools.

• Federal tax: The mother of all federal tax sites is the Internal Revenue Service at www.irs.gov. You might think that a Web site for a government agency would be interminably dull and bureaucratic, but this site is slickly designed, content-rich and — dare I say it — fun. The IRS site is a treasure trove of tax information and advice written in plain, simple English.
• State tax: A host of e-services provide detailed information and forms related to state taxes. The Washington, D.C.-based Federation of Tax Administrators at www.taxadmin.org/fta/forms.ssi offers a downloadable directory of tax forms from each state.
• Tax portals: Scores of private companies, industry associations and other organizations involved in financial management operate their own tax portals to help small-business people meet their tax obligations every April 15 and year-round. Dennis Schmidt, a professor of accounting at the University of Northern Iowa, maintains the Tax and Accounting Sites Directory at www.taxsites.com/.