State taxpayers are big e-filing fans, too

It's not just federal taxpayers who are turning in droves to electronic filing. State tax e-filing also is growing in popularity.

Electronically submitted returns this filing season account for 93 percent of state individual income tax filings, Ronald Alt, a researcher at the Federation of Tax Administrators, told Stateline. That's up 4 percent over last year as of mid-March.

A key reason for the growth of e-filing at the state level is that so many states make it so easy. They also make it free, either via direct filing with the states' tax departments or through partnerships with private tax software manufacturers.

Click on image to go to the Federation of Tax Administrators' interactive map.

Don't miss your state filing deadline: Most states collect income taxes from their residents. And today's Daily Tax Tip notes that most of those states also follow the federal filing deadline.

The 39 tax offices that expect forms and any money you owe by April 15 are in:

Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, West Virginia, Wisconsin and the District of Columbia.

If you live in New Hampshire or Tennessee, you don't have to worry about next week's deadline unless you have interest and/or dividend income. Those are the only earnings from which the Granite State and Volunteer State collect.

Five states have slightly later tax filing deadlines. They are:

• Delaware, April 30
• Hawaii, April 20
• Iowa, April 30
• Louisiana, May 15
• Virginia, May 1

And residents of seven states have only federal tax filing to worry about. There's no individual state income tax of any sort in Alaska, Florida, Nevada, South Dakota, Texas, Washington and Wyoming.

Check with your state's tax department for details on what is required of you and when.

More tax talk: A reminder to file your state taxes is one of April 15's many tax deadlines I discussed last week at Bankrate.

April 15 also is the day to file your federal return, pay Uncle Sam any taxes you owe him, make contributions for last year to your IRA (Roth or traditional), make your first estimated tax payment of 2014, claim that 2010 tax refund you missed when you didn't file for that tax year, make prior year contributions to a couple of health savings accounts, file a gift return if you were very generous last year and, of course, file for an extension.

Also last week at my other tax blog I looked at a more welcome feature of April 15, the annual assortment of Tax Day deals and freebies.

My additional tax thoughts at Bankrate Taxes Blog usually are posted each Tuesday and Thursday. Check them out then and there or look for a synopsis here the following weekend.

You also might find these items of interest:

• Don't forget your state taxes!
• 9 states of no-tax note ... sort of
• 7 tax tasks to take care of by April 15