It isn't often South Carolina gets to stand tall as a national leader for civic or governmental achievement, especially in areas involving modernity and technology.
But as it turns out, the Palmetto State is at the forefront of at least one national movement: a state-by state effort to bring income tax-filing into the modern era.
In 1991, South Carolina became the first state to offer taxpayers an electronic filing option for state and federal income taxes, and for the next 10 years led the nation in the percentage of taxpayers filing returns electronically.
If recent trends hold, the South Carolina Department of Revenue will receive more than half of its expected 2.1 million income tax returns by Internet this year, which would be among the top percentage returns in the country.
"We were on the cutting edge with electronic filing very early on and grew increasingly excited as the system developed," said Danny Brazell, a spokesman with the revenue department.
The department almost crossed the 50 percent mark for electronic filings last year but fell just shy at 47 percent.
This year, it fully expects to make the mark, based on historical growth trends of 5ñ10 percent annually.
According to Brazell, the advantages of online filing are many. First, it helps cut the personnel, printing, processing and storage costs related to handling paper documents -- all important cost-savers during a time of budgetary shortfalls.
In fact, the state plans to hire 75 fewer seasonal workers this year, about 175, due to the reduced processing requirements of the online system.
On the other side, taxpayers can enjoy the speed, accuracy and convenience of a fully computerized system. Taxpayers filing online typically get a refund in about 12 days, or almost eight weeks faster than someone filing a traditional paper return.
The system also eliminates the possibility of lost tax returns and can detect errors much more quickly than the old system.
As an incentive, the department this year has extended the online filing deadline for state returns to May 3. The federal deadline remains April 15.
Taxpayers can file their federal returns online using downloadable software and their state returns only at www.sctax.org.
