IRS Tax Forms, Publications and IRS Instructions

If you want to file the  IRS Form 1040EZ or a simple IRS Form 1040 there is an abundance of  free resources such as IRS tax forms, IRS Publications and IRS Instructions that are  all provided by the IRS to help you get the  answer your tax questions.  In this day and age it makes more sense to use the web rather than calling the IRS or just reading the instructions in the IRS tax forms. However, you should  read the information contained in the IRS tax forms to make sure it agrees to your research. The IRS wants to help you and with a little research  at the  their website you should be able to save money that you otherwise might have to pay to a tax professional. If you can figure out  WordPress,or Blogger, build a cabinet, follow instruction to assemble your child’s new toy, then you should be able to prepare you own tax return, as long as it’s simple and look up the answers to your tax question. Don’t be forget that the IRS tax forms contain useful information. Most simple and basic answers can be obtained by reading the instruction to the IRS tax forms. However, you may have to research further if your answer is not in the instructions to the IRS tax forms.  The IRS wants to make it simple for you, so they have set up an easy and well-designed website and they have basic information in the actual IRS tax forms.   It’s so important for their website to be helpful, the IRS made their  first dropdown menu  on their homepage for “individuals” and is named as such. So you should have no difficulty getting to this section and locating at a minimum, the IRS Tax Forms, IRS Publications and IRS Instructions.

The following sections will help you understand and provide you with several free tax  resources which include FAQs, a knowledge base and the IRS tax forms, IRS Publications and IRS Instructions all freely provided by the IRS.

Your Federal Income Tax, this guide is far more comprehensive than any of the IRS tax forms

This is a 295  page guide to help you and is more detailed than  the information in the IRS tax forms. This is a very comprehensive guide that covers  most tax areas and will certainly cover  most simple tax returns and is a good resource  to supplement the IRS tax forms. It has a table of contents and index, so navigation online is easy. The IRS  has set up bookmarks for this PDF file, so browsing and researching your questions should be easy. And it  gets better, the index is also linked to each section. There is no link or bookmark  back to the index, so you have to keep the left side that shows the bookmarks always open to facilitate navigation. This is a great supplement to any of  the IRS tax forms.  You can also click here for Publication 17

Frequently Asked Tax Questions and Answers not covered in the IRS tax forms

If you don’t want to read the 295 pages in Publication 17 as mentioned above, then  consider this section entitled Top Frequently Asked Questions, which currently  has 10 broad areas and  Frequently Asked Question Categories which consists of 17 broad categories. As you look into each area you will see that there are other links to different questions. Each section has references to the various IRS Publications and IRS Instructions when additional  research is required. Far better and useful than  any of  the IRS tax forms .  Click here  for the  FAQ’s

IRS Tax Map – Knowledge base and navigation bar. Far more comprehensive then the IRS tax forms

The IRS has also put together a very detailed and comprehensive knowledge base , that contains 5000 tax topics and 400 main topics, that provides far more information than what is included in the instructions to the IRS tax forms. You can also browse by Frequently Asked Tax Questions, or IRS Publications and IRS Instructions and 150 topics written for the telephone. The IRS website says states that the  IRS Tax Map was developed to create a new kind of search experience for users to find tax law information faster and more easily than traditional methods. I must say, this is very helpful and you should use it. The database is designed to organize information around subjects of interest to most taxpayers and topics not covered in the basic instructions to the IRS tax forms. There are  links to the topic pages of related topics, as well as to relevant IRS tax forms, instructions and publications. Click here  for the  Navigation Bar

Don’t forget  that if you want to prepare  your own IRS tax forms  and your adjusted gross income(AGI) is $58,000 or less, you can file free with the IRS tax forms  from the IRS website, using Free File software or  by using  any of the cooperating companies as mentioned in this minisite will enable you to prepare and file any of the required IRS tax forms.

This minisite, under the page entitled “Detailed Analysis”  briefly analyzes four well know competing online tax software companies, all of whom provide free filing for the IRS, if you qualify. There is an  extra charge  for your state income tax return. As you will shortly conclude they are very similar in prices and quality and you need to determine which is the best fit. So try their free service and if you don’t like it, then try a different one and get a feel of their website and ease of navigation and read the free resources such as  IRS tax forms, IRS Publications,IRS Instructions,Tax FAQ’s and the IRS knowledge base.

List of IRS  Publications and links to the IRS Website that supplement the IRS tax forms

Take a Test Drive,Click Now and Use the IRS Tax Forms !

All of these tools provided by the IRS for free will supplement the information contained in any of the IRS tax forms. Accordingly, these tools should be used in conjunction with any of the IRS tax forms that you may be using.