Uncle Sam wants to hear from you in nine days, and he's usually rather insistent about the meeting date.

April 15 is the deadline for filing your tax returns (there's an exception for parts of North Dakota this year - more on that in a minute) and more people than ever are doing so electronically instead of the old paper, pen and mail method.

According to the Internal Revenue Service (www.irs.gov), the number of electronically filed tax returns through March 20 is up about 6 percent over the same time in 2008. That's about 4 million more returns than last year so far.

The number of people who are filing self-prepared electronic returns is up 20 percent over 2008 while the number of returns prepared and electronically filed by tax professionals for clients is holding steady.

You can see more statistics and information like this in the news section of the IRS Web site (www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=205907,00.html).

Because of the spring flooding in North Dakota, the IRS has given North Dakotans in 34 of the state's 53 counties an extra month to file their tax returns. May 15 is the new deadline, but only for those in specific counties in the state. If you don't live is the specified counties, you still have to file your tax returns by the original April 15 deadline.

To see which counties are included or get more information, go to www.irs.gov/newsroom/ article/0,,id=205936,00.html.

If you're in an area with an extended May 15 deadline and you mail your tax return, you should write the words, "severe storms, flooding" on your return.

If you're filing electronically, the IRS says use your tax software's "disaster" feature or link, if available.

Electronic tax filing is older than you might think. In 1985, an IRS study found that one in every five tax returns were being prepared through specialized software on a computer. In a 1986 test, 25,000 refund only federal tax returns were processed by the IRS, sent via dialup modem from special transmission centers in Ohio, North Carolina and Arizona.

From such small and slow speed beginnings, electronic tax filing officially went nationwide in 1990. Soon, individual states joined the digital revolution, allowing residents to file state returns electronically as well.

Today, online services and software programs make the annual chore of filing taxes a lot quicker and easier than the days of tracking down IRS forms, schedules and attachments, plowing through pages of filing instructions, doing countless calculations by hand, writing, erasing and rewriting data and then dropping it all off at the post office.

Below are a number of useful resources to help you with tax preparation, whether you're doing it on paper or electronically:

Internal Revenue Service

http://www.irs.gov

Probably the best resource online for tax forms, information, how-to's and guides. Really. It may be a government site, but it's very customer friendly.

N.D. State Tax Forms

www.nd.gov/tax/indincome/forms

An invaluable resource to download and print copies of North Dakota tax forms, learn about electronic filing, get answers to common questions and more.

Tax Software Programs

There are several commercial tax preparation programs commercially around that make filing your taxes electronically a breeze. They all do roughly the same thing - the only difference, really, is pricing. Depending on the package you need, you can pay anywhere from $20 to $80.

Be sure to check the charges for preparing and electronically filing state tax returns. Free federal filing is usually included in the price, but state filing is extra, so you need to figure the price for the software and the extra state charges when comparing programs.

The three most popular programs are Intuit's Turbo-Tax (www.turbotax.com), TaxACT (www.taxact.com) and H&R Block's Tax Cut (www.taxcut.com). The next three popular programs are CompleteTax (www.completetax.com), TaxEngine (www.taxengine.com) and TaxSlayer (www.taxslayer.com).

Finally, if your adjusted gross income is $56,000 or less, you may qualify for "Free File," a joint project between the IRS and dozens of tax software and service companies that allows you to prepare and file your federal taxes online for free. Details on this program are available at the IRS Web site. Go to the home page and click the "free file" link in the left horizontal column.

Keep in mind not all participating companies in the "free file" program also offer free state tax return preparation. Many will charge you a small fee (usually about $10 to $15) to file your state return. The list of companies at the IRS site includes information on whether they charge for preparing state returns.

(Keith Darnay has worked in the online world for more than a decade and is the webmaster for the University of Mary. His Web site, featuring this column going back to 1995, is at www.darnay.com.iec.)