As you can tell from Google Suggests, enough people type in “OfficialPayments.com scam” or “is OfficialPayments.com legit” or “OfficialPayments.com review” to make those terms some of their most popularly suggested search terms regarding the site.
OfficialPayments.com doesn't look like a scam, I used them to pay my Ohio state taxes after American Express told me about them
I learned about Official Payments when I called American Express to make sure I had enough credit to possibly put some of my taxes on my credit card.
They take other credit cards for all kinds of payments including personal and business taxes, and according to their site you can use American Express, Discover, MasterCard, Visa, Accel, BillMeLater, NYCE, Pulse, Star…
The woman at AMEX blessedly gave me the number for questions for Official Payments, which I called at 877.754.4413 since I had questions and had never used them before.
My review of Official Payments is great thus far…
The woman was able to assure me that I didn’t need to send off a tax coupon to the IRS stating that I’d paid through Official Payments, because when I paid online (you can also make Federal Tax Payments over the phone, says the Official Payments website), I entered both my ssn # and my husband’s ssn# since we file jointly.
I don't think they are a scam; I just used OfficialPayments.com to pay my Ohio state taxes with my American Express credit card
If you’re using OfficialPayments.com, verify all this info yourself, since I’m not a tax attorney.
I put in the amount owed to the state of Ohio, and they calculated a fee, which, according to this IRS article, may be deductible:
“If you itemize, you may be able to deduct the convenience fee charged for paying individual income taxes with a credit or debit card as a miscellaneous itemized deduction on Form 1040, Schedule A, Itemized Deductions. The deduction is subject to the 2 percent limit,” says the IRS.
After I made my tax payment online at OfficialPayments.com, they provided me with a confirmation number and a payment date and time, which I printed out. They also sent me a confirmation email.
That email allowed me to confirm my payment:
Thank you for selecting Official Payments Corporation for electronic payment of Income Tax Return. Your payment of $my amount was here (which includes any penalty fees paid, if applicable) was sent to Ohio Individual Taxes on 4/14/2011. Your confirmation number is ********
To check the status of your payment, visit the Official Payments Corporation Web site at https://www.officialpayments.com/pc_paym.jsp.
Please be prepared to provide your e-mail address WHATEVERYOUREMAILADDRESSIS@GMAIL.COM and one of the following two items:
-Your confirmation number,
OR
-The last four digits of the card you used for payment, ****
I saw a note that said due to my zip code, I could make other payments through them (maybe my city taxes?) but the session timed out for security reasons, so I don’t know what that would’ve been. So I’m just going to mail those off certified mail with the other payments I’m sending the IRS through certified snail mail. (Love having the time to pay them off and earn more money online!)
And it’s not just Federal or State (if you’re one of the 25 states) taxes that can be paid by a credit card online through them, but other taxes as well
Not just for Federal Income taxes, according to OfficialPayments.com, you can also make:
# State personal income taxes
# Business taxes and fees
# Utilities
# Personal and real property taxes
# Education payments
# Court fees and fines
# Rent and property management fees
# And many other state and local payments
And this OfficialPayments.com page goes into more detail about the specific states and payments you can make via them. Thank God Ohio was one of them. Gives me more time to earn the monies to pay off my AMEX in full as He always so graciously allows me to do, even when I haven’t budgeted the best or spend too much money!
Federal Payments – Personal:
* • Personal Income Taxes
* • Estimated Payments
* • Automatic Extension to File
* • Installment Agreement Payment
* • Personal Income Taxes from Prior Tax Years
* • Advance Payment of a Determined Deficiency
* • Trust Fund Recovery Penalty from Prior Tax Periods and Installment Agreements
Federal Payments – Business:
* • Form 940 Series – Employer’s Annual Unemployment Tax Return
* • Form 941 Series – Employer’s Quarterly Federal Tax Return
* • Form 943 Series – Employer’s Annual Federal Tax Return for Agricultural Employees
* • Form 944 Series – Employer’s Annual Federal Tax Return
* • Form 945 Series – Annual Return of Withheld Federal Income Tax
* • Form 1041 Series – US Fiduciary Income Tax Return
* • Form 1065 Series – US Partnership Return of Income Tax Return
State Payments
* • Personal Income Taxes
* • Estimated Payments
* • Tax Amnesty Payments
* • License Renewals
* • Unemployment Insurance Contributions
* • Workers Compensation
* • Benefits Overpayments
* • Withholding
* • Corporate Taxes
* • Petroleum, Mineral Fuel, and related Taxes
* • Cigarette and Alcohol Taxes
* • Excise Taxes
* • Net Worth Tax
* • Fleet Taxes
Local Payments
* • Real Estate Taxes
* • Personal Property Taxes
* • Utilities
* • Citations
* • Court Fees and Fines
* • Parking Fees and Fines
* • Permits and Licenses
* • Tuition and Meal Plans
* • Parks and Recreation Fees
* • Local and Municipal Income Taxes
* • Cigarette and Alcohol Taxes
* • Vital Record and Real Estate Document Purchases
* • Motor Vehicle Taxes
* • Registration Renewals
* • Emergency Services
* • Assessments
* • Miscellaneous Fees, Fines, and Billings
Granted, I only used them to pay my Ohio state taxes, and not any of the other taxes listed above, but I saw online where a guy wrote about paying some kind of court fees, and another man wondered if he could use OfficialPayments.com to pay his estimated taxes. I think I’ll use the way described here instead for my estimated tax payments in 2011, which talks about using EFTPS.gov, the Electronic Federal Tax Payment System to pay my estimated taxes online.
Have you used OfficialPayments.com to make any kind of payment before? What’s your review of the website? Not a scam, right? Thanks for commenting below!
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
Wow…Official Payments worked fine for me, and I’m also doing a monthly pay off to the IRS thru their ETFPS system that I pay from my bank account every month.
I hope yours works out well.
We just got a notice from the IRS that Official Payments did not pay our tax bill, and now we’re spending an hour and a half on the phone with the IRS – We don’t trust them to process your taxes – we are going to automatic debit
I don’t think so because can you pay your taxes directly to the government through their EFTPS using American Express credit cards?
I’ve used the EFTPS to pay my taxes each month since then directly out of my checking account thru my debit card, but when I wanted to use my AMEX card, that’s when I turned to the Official Payments that the IRS recommends directly on their IRS.gov website:
Official Payments Corporation, 1-800-2PAY-TAX (1-800-272-9829), 1-877-754-4413 (Customer Service), http://www.officialpayments.com.
Anyone may use these services to charge taxes to an American Express, Discover, MasterCard or VISA credit card.
I look at it like this: If you want to pay your water bill and type the name of your municipal company into Google and instead of water company Google sends you to this site, and this site has the logo of your water company on it, and says pay it from there, something is amiss. Why not just go to the website of your water company where you can do the same online payment without a convenience fee? It seems like this company is making money by trying to get in the way of who I really want to do business with, ie my water company, by placing iteself higher in the google search hierarchy and thus mislead me. I resent that!
I had a friend that worked for Official Payments in the early-2000s, They are indeed a legit company, and the will in fact pass your payments though to the IRS or whoever just as they claim. They make their money on the processing fees they charge the users of the service.
-Gil
Did you provide the IRS with the proof of payment that you made to official payments? Just curious, you might want to contact both the IRS and official payments directly. I wish you the best.
i feel that i got rip off a scam, i paid the account of $139 and the IRS billed me a payment of what i owe with penalty and interest, why did they not pay the amount if they took it off my debit card? i know i paid them so they can send my payment to IRS it says i owe the amount of $139 on my income tax, i send the payment as a “Form 1040 Balance Due” to IRS by the website of http://www.officialpayments.com if you have any concerns to help me feel free to contact me.
Thanks, AF!!! I appreciate the service.
Hi Paula-
Thank you for the fabulous write up and for using Official Payments to make your payment. You are correct – our service IS 100% legit! If you decide to pay your Federal taxes online too, you can do so up until the very last minute on Monday, April 18th. You can even schedule your payment today to be paid on Monday.
Thank you again!
AF
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