AUGUSTA – More Mainers are jumping on the electronic tax filing bandwagon.

Dennis Doiron, director of the state income tax division of Maine Revenue Services, said he expects about 160,000 Mainers to file their taxes electronically this year – nearly a 40 percent increase over 2001.

“I think people, as they use those [computerized] systems and get comfortable with them, I don’t think those people will go back to paper returns,” he said.

Today is the tax-filing deadline across the country. But because of the Patriot’s Day state holiday, taxpayers in Maine and Massachusetts have until midnight Tuesday to mail their returns.

Nationally, the Internal Revenue Service at the end of March had received 33.6 million returns prepared on a computer, almost 17 percent above the same period in 2001.

Electronic filing means that taxpayers can get their tax returns back faster – sometimes as quickly as a week.

It also has benefits for the state. Doiron said the rise of electronic filing already had enabled his office to cut back on staffing and virtually eliminated overtime because of the reduction in data entry work.

Tax preparers have also used electronic filing as a way to lure customers.

Judy Skehan and her husband, Jack, began to offer electronic filing about a decade ago. This year, all 1,500 returns they file from their Gardiner office will be sent electronically to the IRS.

“I like it because it is neat and clean and quick,” Judy Skehan said.

Robert A. Bolduc II of Tax-Pro Inc. in Skowhegan said electronic filing also offers security that paper returns can’t guarantee.

Last year, for instance, about 74,000 paper returns – including a few from Bolduc’s clients – were lost at a tax processing center in Pittsburgh. With electronic filing, Bolduc said, the IRS confirms that it has received the return.

Bolduc said the pen-and-paper method of filing tax returns is not likely to vanish. But tax professionals believe electronic filing almost certainly will continue to grow, he said.

“In today’s world, if you don’t offer the service, you are going to be sitting on the sidelines eventually,” Bolduc said.