Where can I pick up IRS tax forms? (East Lake: insurance, home)

[DeanJ44]

Printing is not an option. Filing online is not an option. I need the instruction booklets and the actual paper tax forms in my hand. Used to be that you could get them at libraries and post offices but I haven't needed to do this in decades. I am in East Lake, if that matters.

[Schuttzie]

Sometimes, local libraries will carry the forms and it they don't have the instruction booklets, you can look on the IRS website. Possibly the local post office as well.

[WRM20]

The IRS will mail them to you https://www.irs.gov/forms-pubs/forms...ons-by-us-mail

Or, download forms from the IRS site to your computer, copy them to a flash drive, then take the drive to an office supply store and have them printed.

I'm curious as to why filing online isn't an option. Filing by paper will cause significant delays in processing your return.

[DeanJ44]

Originally Posted by WRM20

The IRS will mail them to you https://www.irs.gov/forms-pubs/forms...ons-by-us-mail

Or, download forms from the IRS site to your computer, copy them to a flash drive, then take the drive to an office supply store and have them printed.

I'm curious as to why filing online isn't an option. Filing by paper will cause significant delays in processing your return.

Thank you for this. Very helpful. I am just now starting to get involved with investigating what I need to do to file my recently deceased parents' taxes. As with every other aspect of dealing with the nightmare that finances, legal issues and insurance has been - I have received conflicting information about this subject as well. I need to file their taxes for both 2021 and 2022 because they are due refunds for both years. It has taken me months just to search for, locate and organize things so that I am getting closer to wanting to scratch this one of the million other things I have to do - off the endless list. I file all my taxes online and have for years but my elderly parents did not. I have read that in my situation, I cannot file online. I would like that not to be true.

I am drowning in paperwork. In fact, just this morning I got fed up looking at one of the giant stacks of medical/insurance/Medicare/hospital bill paperwork and threw it all away. Then - while researching this tax question came across something that said you are supposed to keep such paperwork for 7-10 years. Yeah.....that isn't going to happen. I would never make any progress if I did that. I thought a few months should be enough to receive any relevant hospital bills or insurance statements. With my luck, one will arrive in the mail tomorrow.

[Schuttzie]

I am so sorry for you loss! It must be incredibly hard to deal with all of this on top of all the other things you must do with the estate and your grieving process. I wish you all the best!

[Parnassia]

Originally Posted by WRM20

The IRS will mail them to you https://www.irs.gov/forms-pubs/forms...ons-by-us-mail

Or, download forms from the IRS site to your computer, copy them to a flash drive, then take the drive to an office supply store and have them printed.

Printing is still an option. Where there's a will, there's a way. There are several alternatives:

1. The IRS blank forms catalog offers printer ready versions of just about everything. Go to the local library and use their patron computers to look up, download, and send the necessary IRS blank form files to the library's networked printer,

2. Use the library's patron computers to find and download the blank files to your own flash drive and take it somewhere else to print,
or

3. Download the blank forms to a flash drive at home and take that to the library or a local copying shop for printing. My local mom-pop shop will even let a customer go online right in the store, search the IRS catalog, and print the blank forms right then and there if they aren't too busy. So will the local book shop.

The IRS forms library can be a bit frustrating to navigate if you need less frequently used forms, schedules or their associated instructions. They usually have a subcategory of forms/schedules most people need most often (various versions of the 1040, Schedule 1, A, B, D, etc.) right at the top of the catalog's opening page. Still, you don't need to print or even download the instructions. You can always pull them up on any computer with web access and leave the page open while filling the physical forms out that way.

Depending on what word processing software (something like Microsoft Office for example) you have on your computer you can often open the blank form files for editing. Then you can insert financial data into the blanks, save the revised file, and take that somewhere to print the final result. The local libraries I've used haven't had stacks of free forms available for the taking for years, but they still offered a binder of reference copies patrons could use to make their OWN then and there using the library's copier. They'll probably be all black and white but the IRS probably doesn't care one bit.

FWIW, I've never owned a printer. Don't print out enough to justify one. Sure, loading up a flash drive and taking files somewhere else to print them is less convenient but that doesn't mean it's impossible.

[Lillie767]

Many places that might have had paper forms earlier in the year, probably have either filed or trashed the paper forms after April 16.

[kab0906]

Originally Posted by DeanJ44

Thank you for this. Very helpful. I am just now starting to get involved with investigating what I need to do to file my recently deceased parents' taxes. As with every other aspect of dealing with the nightmare that finances, legal issues and insurance has been - I have received conflicting information about this subject as well. I need to file their taxes for both 2021 and 2022 because they are due refunds for both years. It has taken me months just to search for, locate and organize things so that I am getting closer to wanting to scratch this one of the million other things I have to do - off the endless list. I file all my taxes online and have for years but my elderly parents did not. I have read that in my situation, I cannot file online. I would like that not to be true.

I am drowning in paperwork. In fact, just this morning I got fed up looking at one of the giant stacks of medical/insurance/Medicare/hospital bill paperwork and threw it all away. Then - while researching this tax question came across something that said you are supposed to keep such paperwork for 7-10 years. Yeah.....that isn't going to happen. I would never make any progress if I did that. I thought a few months should be enough to receive any relevant hospital bills or insurance statements. With my luck, one will arrive in the mail tomorrow.

Scanner.

Scan the documents then you can keep them forever if you had to.