CONTACTS: Phil
DiIanni (Money): 212.522.6282 or Michael Brenner (ICR): 484-840-4300
POLL RESULTS: MAJORITY OF AMERICANS
INTEND TO FILE TAXES EARLY
-- More than half of Americans will use a tax professional --
NEW YORK, NY [January 26, 2006] As
the April 15th deadline for filing taxes approaches, people are
already thinking about filing their tax returns. A recent MONEY magazine /
ICR poll revealed that large majority of Americans (80%)
plan to file their personal tax return prior to April 15th, the date
by which all returns are due to be mailed to the IRS. Well more than half (58%)
plan to file well in advance of this, planning to file before March 15th.
Few anticipate filing on tax day (3%) or asking for an extension (3%).
Of those filing tax returns this year, more than half (59%)
will use a professional to prepare their return, more than one-third (38%) will
be preparing their own tax return.
Other findings from the poll:
- One-in-five
tax filers will be using a software program to prepare the form. Almost as
many (17%) will be doing it the old fashioned way - manually (hopefully
with the help of a calculator).
- When
asked if they expect to be hit with the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT),
two-in-five (40%) didnt know. Just one-in-ten (10%) said they would be
hit with the AMT and half believe they will not be (50%).
- The
bill on their 2005 tax return is expected to be higher by one-third of
Americans (32%), half as many expect it to be lower (15%). Most (40%)
expect it to be the same.
ABOUT THE POLL
The Money/ICR poll was conducted by telephone with a nationally
representative sample of 932 Americans from Jan 11-15, 2006. The margin
of error was plus or minus 3.21 percentage points.
The poll was conducted using ICRs telephone omnibus survey of adults
age 18 and over. ICR is one of the nation's leading market and opinion
research firms and is headquartered in Media,
PA. For more information on this
methodology please go to: http://www.icrsurvey.com.
MONEY, published by Time Inc., is the nations largest financial
publication with a circulation of 1.9 million and a total readership over 7 million.
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