Happy New Year! Here’s Your Tax Form

Talk about a post-new-year letdown. With Americans’ mailboxes barely cleared of Christmas cards, the Internal Revenue Service is sending its own holiday greetings.

Most of the 65.5 million Americans due 1996 income tax packages started receiving them Thursday, although some postmasters itching to rid their warehouses of the documents jumped the gun on the delivery date.

This year’s forms are little changed, because most tax law changes enacted last year didn’t take immediate effect.

“That is good news for many taxpayers, because they can use last year’s return as a guide,” IRS Commissioner Margaret Milner Richardson said.

By the end of this month, taxpayers should receive documents with information needed for filing, such as forms W-2, 1098 and 1099. As usual, the returns are due April 15.

There are some procedural changes this year:

Telephone filing has been expanded to include many married couples without dependents and recipients of unemployment compensation. Previously only single people with job and interest income were eligible.

It’s easier getting a refund deposited directly into a bank account.

The IRS can deny personal exemptions, the earned income credit and the dependent care credit to taxpayers who don’t provide accurate Social Security numbers for themselves, spouses and dependents.