Tax day is only a weekend away, but  Denise McKinnon from the local Jackson Hewitt office said that it’s still not too late for taxpayers to meet the April 15 deadline for mailing or e-filing taxes.

The key, McKinnon said, is to have tax information together before visiting a tax service for assistance.

“They are going to need their I.D.,” McKinnon said. “As well as any Social Security cards for people that are listed on their return. They need all of their information regarding their income, like their 1099s and W-2 forms.”

She said that if taxpayers don’t come armed with their income information it is hard for her to do the return.

“It makes it very difficult for us,” McKinnon said. “If somebody comes in with incomplete income information, especially.”

If a person owes money to the Internal Revenue Service and still has not paid yet, McKinnon said they really only have two options.

“If they feel like they cannot afford to pay, then they need to contact the IRS and file an extension,” McKinnon said. “If that doesn’t work, then they need to contact the IRS and see if they can set up payment plans. Those are really the only two options.”

McKinnon said that Jackson Hewitt will be open all weekend.

“We don’t have specific numbers,” McKinnon said. “But from the information we were given, we still have a lot of people that still need to file. You have five more days to file, and I don’t know why people are waiting, because that date isn’t going to change.”

She said that this tax season has been a lot slower than last year.

“I think a part of the reason is that people are afraid of the new tax changes this year,” McKinnon said. “But we go through several classes every year and make sure that we are up to date with the new tax information, so they don’t need to be afraid.”

As of last Friday, nearly 103.5 million taxpayers had filed individual income tax returns, based on the latest data from the IRS. That’s only down 0.3% from a year ago.

Based on the latest reports, the IRS received roughly 10 million returns in that first week of April.