March 19th, 2011

Tax season is in full swing. But something is missing: the forms the Internal Revenue Service sends out in the mail every year.

It isn’t a mistake. As part of a push to have more taxpayers file electronically, this year the IRS ended its decades-long practice of mailing paper packages to taxpayers. In 2009 it cost the IRS only 19 cents to process an e-filed return, compared with $3.29 for one on paper.

There are other important tax-code changes to be aware of as well, many of them a result of December’s sweeping tax legislation. They affect health insurance for the self-employed, charitable IRA rollovers, sales taxes and other items.