The Internal Revenue Service is ready to accept US citizens’ federal tax returns since Monday, Jan. 28 2019. However, at some point every year around the beginning of April, Americans are trying to figure out what forms they must file and when they must file them in the new tax season. The official deadline to file the federal income tax return each year can be a little shifty. It's supposed to be April 15 — unless something interferes with that timing, like the date falling on a weekend or a holiday. April 15 falls on a Monday this year, and it's not a holiday, so the filing deadline for the 2018 tax returns is indeed April 15. However, taxpayers who live in Maine or Massachusetts will have until April 17, 2019, to file their federal income tax returns.

The new tax law has changed many forms, credits, and deductions. Make sure to become familiar with the changes before filing your federal income tax return. More info on www.usa.gov/file-taxes

E-filing, or electronic filing, is the process of submitting tax returns over the internet rather than sending them via mail. It’s much easier and has more advantages than disadvantages, which is why more than 90% of the taxpayers prefer e-filling.

Some of the advantages of e-filing taxes are:

• Having a more accurate return (1% error rate with electronic tax returns vs. 20% error rate with paper tax returns)
• Receiving your tax refund faster (if you choose a direct bank deposit, you can receive yours in as few as eight days)
• Getting instant notification when your return is received and is accepted by the IRS (you can also check your tax return status and refund status anytime, anywhere)
• Knowing your return is submitted securely (your personal information is kept private)
• Security - it is safer than mailing your tax return. Most web sites are equipped to prevent unauthorized people from seeing the data sent to or from those sites.
• Avoiding IRS penalties (e-file early or on time to avoid late fees, and pay later even if you can't afford it right away)

During the tax season, the major e-filling websites will experience much heavier traffic to deal with, which may slow down your process or even interrupt it. As a result, you may fail to submit your tax refund, or you may lose all the information you have been filling out.

Every year WebSitePulse monitor precisely the response time and uptime of popular tax refund websites during tax season to see how they handle the heavy traffic, and then we report their performance and availability daily. As usual, we have picked 12 of the most popular websites to monitor and compare their performance.