By PAUL WALKE
If avoiding filling out tax forms is worth paying a small amount of money to you, then a new tax filing program available over the Internet might be worth looking into.
Intuit, the company that produces the financial software Quicken, has developed QuickTax, a program that can be downloaded from the Internet. It specifically targets college-age students because they don't have as much information to file.
'Filing taxes is a confusing and time-consuming proposition for many people,' said Scott Cook, chairman of Intuit. 'QuickTax is designed for ease of use and helps young adults quickly and easily prepare their taxes.'
To use QuickTax, customers need to visit Intuit's World Wide Web site, http://www.intuit.com/quicktax, and download the software, which includes over 30 forms, schedules and worksheets. The customer then answers a few simple questions and the program does all the calculations. When finished, the user prints out the forms, signs them and sends them to the Internal Revenue Service.
QuickTax works on any typical 386, 486 or Pentium personal computer with Windows 3.1 or Windows 95. The cost is $9.95 to download the forms, as opposed to filling it out yourself for free or hiring help from a tax filing company.