Americans’ faith in the fairness of their taxes has slipped to its lowest level in more than a decade, according to a new survey released Monday, the deadline for most Americans to file their returns.

Overall, 55 percent of Americans think their taxes are fair, according to the Gallup survey. That’s the lowest rate since 2001, the polling company said.

The bulk of the decline comes from people who identify themselves as conservative Republicans, whose perception of the tax code's fairness has slipped.

Surprisingly, the fairness question is generally consistent among both the rich and poor. The difference comes down to politics, according to Gallup's Economy and Personal Finance poll.

Only 49 percent of Republicans currently think their taxes are fair, compared with 66 percent of Democrats and 51 percent of Independents. Among people who identify themselves as liberals, 70 percent think their taxes are fair, compared with 59 percent of moderates and 45 percent of conservatives.

In the past decade, party parity was closest in 2003, which Gallup pollsters linked to tax cuts signed by President George W. Bush shortly after the start of the Iraq war. In 2003, 64 percent of Americans said their taxes were fair, including 66 percent of Democrats and 62 percent of Republicans.

The Gallup pollsters note that taxes haven’t actually gone up for most Americans since then; the survey measures perception. And 64 percent of Americans think their taxes will probably rise in the next 12 months. Gallup has asked that question sporadically over the years and the only time it’s been higher was December 1977.

In 1943 Gallup first asked Americans if they thought their taxes were fair. An average of 87 percent of Americans said their taxes were fair, right up until World War II ended. By 1946, the average dropped to 61 percent. Gallup stopped asking the question until the late 1990s, and then hit the low point in 1999 when only 45 percent of Americans said their taxes were fair.

Charlotte Crane, a professor specializing in tax law at the Northwestern University School of Law, said a lot of factors come into play when considering the perception of fairness. 

One element is whether people feel control over how their taxes are spent and whether those expenditures are popular with the public, Crane said. Another reason for the decline could be with the perceived lack of transparency of who pays what and if everyone’s income is calculated equally. 

And indeed, wartime can lead to fewer complaints. 

“When it’s a popular war, as definitely World War II was, you don’t hear as much grousing,” said Crane, who is not affilited with the Gallup report.

The telephone poll was conducted from April 4 through 7 with a random sample of 1,005 adults in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. Respondents were asked a series of questions including “Do you regard the income tax which you will have to pay this year as fair?” The margin of error is plus or minus 4 percentage points.

Tax time: Love it or hate it?

About one-third of Americans like – or even love! – doing their taxes, a new survey from Pew Research Center finds.

If that leaves you scratching your head, count yourself among the majority. The survey also found that 56 percent of Americans either dislike or outright hate doing their taxes.

People with family incomes under $30,000 were more likely to say they like or love doing their taxes, while those with incomes of $75,000 or higher were more likely to say they dislike or hate tax time.

The most common reason people gave for being a fan of tax time is that they like getting a refund. Others said they thought they were good at it.

The most common reason for not enjoying tax season? It’s too complicated or requires too much paperwork. Others also noted that tax time is inconvenient and time-consuming.

That’s likely to hit home for anyone who will be scrambling to get their taxes done this weekend. As a reminder, the tax deadline is Monday, April 15.

(If you can’t file by then, here are the Internal Revenue Service’s tips on how to get an extension.)

It appears that plenty of people will be filing at the last minute. As of April 5, the IRS said it had received about 96.6 million tax returns, slightly fewer than at that point last year. The IRS had paid out about $214.5 billion in tax refunds as of April 5, also down slightly from a year ago.

In 2012, the IRS received a total of nearly 148.4 million individual tax returns, and paid out $309.65 billion in tax refunds.

The Pew  survey of of 1,003 adults, which was conducted in early April, also found that about 7 in 10 Americans think it’s morally wrong to fail to report all your income. That’s consistent with other research that has shown that we may not like tax time, but most of us don’t think it’s OK to rob the tax man.

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As tax day draws near, some people may be surprised to discover they owe money — or owe more money than they expected.

What should you do if you can't pay taxes?

If you think you may have trouble paying your full tax bill, don't panic. There are ways to ease the burden. First and foremost, file a tax return or file for an extension by the April deadline.

File a tax return 
Whatever you do, don't ignore Uncle Sam. You must file a tax return. The penalty for not filing is 10 times more than the penalty for not paying.

If you fail to file by the April 15th deadline, you could face a penalty of 5 percent of your unpaid tax bill, plus interest, for each month the return is late - until the penalty hits 25 percent of what you owe.

If you file, but fail to pay your taxes, the penalty is only half a percent of your unpaid tax bill, plus interest, each month.

File for an extension 
If you need more time to gather paperwork, file for an extension. Last year, more than 11 million taxpayers requested an extension.

File for an extension by April 15th and you'll have until Oct. 15 to submit your tax return. By filing an extension, you've cut down on the penalties you'd pay by not filing at all, plus you'll get an automatic extension for six months to get your tax return in. Just remember, it's an extension to file — not an extension to pay. Starting April 16, if you have a tax liability and owe money to the IRS, interest and penalty begin to accrue on your tax bill.

Contact IRS to find out about payment options 
To minimize the effects of interest and penalties on unpaid balances on your taxes, begin by exploring your options with the IRS.

About one in six taxpayers who file their returns has a balance due on their return, according to the IRS. For many people, their tax bill is a big burden. But if you can't pay what you owe, or you can't pay all of what they owe, the IRS will work with you to get the money. Taxpayers can call the IRS at 1800 829 1040 — or go to the IRS website at www.IRS.gov.

Set up payment agreement online 
Setting up a payment agreement with the IRS is often the answer. As long as you owe $50,000 or less and have already filed your return, the easiest and fastest way to apply for an installment plan is to do so directly on the IRS website at www.irs.gov. You can also use Form 9465 to request an installment plan. In the payment agreement, you set the terms and figure out the largest monthly payment you can make. Once approved, you'll be charged a $105 fee — or $52 if you make direct debit payments from your bank account.

Be careful paying tax bill with credit card 
You may find it easiest to just pay your taxes with plastic. But it'll cost you in other ways. The IRS will let you pay by debit or credit card through one of five online payment processors — OfficialPayments.com, ChoicePay.com, Pay1040.com, Businesstaxpayment.com, and PayUSAtax.com. There's usually a flat fee for using a debit card, ranging from $2.99 to $3.49 per transaction. But online payment processers charge a fee of 1.88 percent to 2.35 percent of your tax bill for using a credit card — and some tack that fee on to debit card transactions as well. If you don't pay your credit card balance in full in the next billing cycle, you'll pay interest each month until you do. That's another 15 percent interest on the average variable rate, according to Bankrate.com.

If you don't like paying fees, there are free e-pay options available, such as electronic funds withdrawal and the Electronic Federal Tax Payment System, which allows you to pay via the Internet or by phone.

In the end, if you can't pay your full tax bill, setting up a payment plan with the IRS is probably the best way to go. Just remember, don't take too long to pay. Penalties and interest will continue to accrue until the full tax bill is paid. However, the late-payment penalty is cut in half for any month an installment agreement is in effect.

Economists predicted catastrophe: As workers started taking home paychecks in January that were 2 percent lighter – thanks to the expiration of the payroll tax cut – they thought consumer confidence and spending would tank.

So far, it hasn’t.

Retail sales rose more than analysts expected last month, and consumer confidence rebounded. In a new survey from Bankrate.com, 48 percent of respondents said they didn’t notice having less money, while 7 percent said it hasn’t affected their finances.

“It was a little anti-climactic,” said Portland, Ore. resident Taraneh Fultz, who works at a distribution company. “It wasn’t as big a deal as we were actually thinking.” Fultz said she and her husband might return some of the discretionary income they had shaved from their budget in anticipation of the tax increase.

“It wasn’t until I saw my paycheck that I realized how important 2 percent was. That’s not to say it was devastating for us. ... It definitely wasn’t,” said Alex Shorter, who works at a technology company in Atlanta. “In the grand scheme of things, it hasn’t affected our standard of living.”

“It’s very encouraging. It means other things going on are helping,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics. "We are weathering the storm well, at least so far, better than I would have thought."

Zandi cautioned against reading too much into a survey of consumer perceptions, noting that the impact could take longer to manifest, but he said record highs in the stock market and a rebounding real estate market contribute to the so-called “wealth effect.”

The stock market and higher home values don’t put money into people’s pockets, but people are willing to save less and spend more, Zandi said.

Shorter, who works at the IT company, said his family’s savings are aggressive but that “ultimately, we are putting a little less into savings as a result of this.”

“The job creation numbers were sufficient to make consumers believe that their economic situation was improving,” said Richard Curtin, director of Surveys of Consumers at the University of Michigan’s Survey Research Center, which publishes a monthly survey of consumer confidence. For February, consumer sentiment rose roughly 5 percent over January’s figure.

“Hours increased and employment increased, so more people had more money in their income even if taxes were higher,” Curtin said.

Only 30 percent of respondents to Bankrate’s survey said they cut spending. This figured prominently among the middle class: 42 percent of respondents with household incomes between $50,000 and $75,000 said they were spending less.

Bryan Smith, a police officer in Haledon, N.J., said his family planned to spend less this year anyway because of rising healthcare costs and a deferred raise. “You forget it’s there but you got used to that little bit extra,” he said.

That was the idea. The two-year reduction in an employee’s portion of the payroll tax that gets funneled toward Social Security to 4.2 percent from 6.2 percent was a measure designed to trickle-charge rather than to jump start the economy.

In other words: Rather than give Americans a lump sum — which would be more likely saved or used to pay down debt — doling out a few bucks more per paycheck increased the odds that they would feed that money back into the economy without really thinking about it.

“That’s the beauty of this approach to doing a stimulus. It’s stealthy,” Zandi, the Moody’s analyst, said.

It was a boost consumers weren’t supposed to notice, so it might not be so surprising that so many didn’t notice its disappearance.

For most of us, doing the income tax return is a major project. The laws are confusing and they keep changing all the time.

During a TODAY Money web chat on Wednesday, Mark Steber, Chief Tax Officer with Jackson Hewitt Tax Service, answered a variety of tax questions. 

Here's one that may affect you or someone in your family:

Andrew: I owe the IRS over $2,500 this year. And I simply don’t have the money. What should I do? File an extension? Ask for a payment plan? My wife and I are freaking out. Help!

Mark Steber: First, don’t freak out. There are many like you and much help is available. Second, do not simply file for an extension, as would not likely be valid with such a balance due. The extension would be invalid and the tax return late in addition to underpaid.

Having said all of that, there are options as you note. The IRS offers a pretty good payment plan option. The plan allows up to 72 months to pay your taxes. There is a fee of $105, $52 if you agree to electronic debit of your monthly payment.

Other considerations – as we noted earlier – include possibly using a credit card for short term financing.

Read the full Q & A below:

Sharon Epperson

Failing to file a tax return or extension because you're afraid you can't come up with the dough is the worst thing you can do. You'll pay a 5 percent penalty per month, plus interest, on the amount you owe. 

Turning in the forms by April 15th and paying a little something is your best bet. 

And if you're really financially strapped, the IRS can work with you on a payment plan, which can be setup and approved online in minutes.

Please send in your questions to Sharon Epperson and let her help you with your IRS issues.

If you’re interested in being a part of this project, please e-mail us here. Please give us some details, including where you live, what you or your spouse does for a living and how to best reach you. Selected responses will be used in upcoming stories.

Spencer Platt / Getty Images file

The Rockaways in New York were hard hit by Superstorm Sandy, and many of the homes were destroyed. Residents will be able to deduct what they lost.

ROCKAWAY BEACH, New York - It's March, and life has yet to return to normal for those of us whose lives were upended by Superstorm Sandy. We are still waiting on insurance settlements and overworked contractors, and trying not to hyperventilate as we see how much Sandy has cost in everything from drywall to new sofas to extra restaurant meals.

There is some consolation: We might be able to recoup some losses at tax time. Residents in areas that suffered through one of the 10 federally declared disaster areas in 2012 can deduct the value of their lost property on their tax returns.

For this reason, the 177,000 people in the Sandy corridor and some 64,000 other storm victims might actually be looking forward to dealing with the Internal Revenue Service this tax season. But get ready, because like all things storm-related, there's going to be lots of paperwork - and tissues - involved.

"It's so emotional," says Judy Strauss, an enrolled agent (IRS-licensed preparer) in Cobleskill, N.Y. "But people just have to take a deep breath and do it. I tell people to keep a piece of paper by the bed. Every time you wake up in the middle of the night and remember something else you've lost, write it down."

Timing your return
If you were in a declared federal disaster area, you can file an amended return for the 2011 tax year and tuck your Sandy losses into that, or you can simply claim them on your 2012 return. (You can find a complete list of the qualifying storms and areas at the FEMA website.) 

"Choose whichever will give you a better tax situation," says David Tolleth, an enrolled agent in Holmdel, N.J. That's typically the year in which your income was lower, because under the IRS formula, the less you earn, the more losses you can deduct.

You may want to file as soon as possible, but wait until your final insurance settlement comes in, so you can properly account for your losses.

"You need to get appraisals," says Tolleth. "You've got to know if you're going to rebuild, and what those expenses will be. And then you need to know how much insurance you're going to get. And if you don't know those things, then you can't file."

You could end up owing money back to the IRS if you claim too many losses prematurely, he said.

If necessary, you can request an extension so your 2012 return won't be due until October 15; you have until then to decide whether you would rather declare your Sandy losses against your 2011 return.

If you've had extensive casualty losses, you might be owed more in refunds than you paid in taxes. In that case, you can apply those extra losses as far back as 2009 or carry them over to future years. A good tax adviser can help you figure out which would save you more.

What is deductible? Answer: Every spoon
Losses that are not reimbursed by insurance can be deducted using IRS Form 4684: Casualties and Thefts. This includes loss of personal property (many flood policies did not cover items such as furniture and clothing) as well as a decrease in the value of your home - something an appraiser would have to calculate. 

You can also deduct items excluded by your flood and homeowner's insurance such as the cost of landscaping improvements, lawn furniture, decks, fences and swimming pools.

Using photographs, receipts or, if necessary, just your memory, make a list of every item lost. Jot down every spoon, dish towel, bottle of makeup and prescription medication. Show the original cost of the item and what it would be worth if you would have tried to sell it the day before the storm.

"Ask yourself, 'What could I sell it for if I sold it on Craigslist?'" says Tolleth.

Include on your list items for which you received only partial insurance reimbursement. For example, if you lost a car in the storm and it was valued at $10,000 but you received only $5,000 from your insurance, you can include the extra $5,000 in your disaster loss statement.

Anything that has been paid for by insurance or FEMA is not deductible, nor is cash that was destroyed in the home. Also, improvements you make to the home during rebuilding cannot be claimed on your return.

"If you had a 1950s kitchen and now you're putting in a 2012 kitchen, you're improving, so you have to go back to what the 1950s one would have cost you to replace," says Strauss.

Less than a full loss
Once you add up everything you've lost, the IRS requires you to do some math to figure out your actual deduction.

For example, let's say your total documented loss, not covered by insurance, was $20,000. Your adjusted gross income was $100,000. First, everyone has to subtract $100 from the $20,000. Consider that a sort of IRS deductible. That leaves you with $19,900. Then you have to subtract 10 percent of your gross income - in this case, $10,000. (That's why choosing to file in the tax year in which your income was lower could save you some money.)

Your casualty deduction will then be $9,900, saving you roughly $2,475 in federal taxes if you're in the 25-percent bracket.

In other discouraging news, you may actually end up with a bigger tax bill than you were expecting anyway. Congress liberalized hardship withdrawals from retirement accounts for Sandy sufferers, but if you withdrew money from your 401(k) or tax-deferred individual retirement account and didn't replace it, you may owe income taxes and a 10 percent penalty on the hardship withdrawal - adding insult to hardship.

Creditors are often willing to negotiate a significant discount to settle a debt they know the customer can’t pay in full. Millions of Americans buried in consumer debt took advantage of such a settlement offer last year.

Now it’s time to pay taxes on the part of the debt that was forgiven.

“If you had any debt that was forgiven and the amount you saved was more than $600, the IRS considers that taxable income,” said Bill Hardekopf, CEO of Lowcards.com. “You need to claim that on your tax return.”

Let’s say you owed the credit card company $15,000 and they let you settle the account for only $10,000. The $5,000 they forgave is taxable. If you’re in the 15 percent tax bracket, you’d owe $750. Clearly, that’s easier on your budget than the $5,000 you owed, but it could come as quite a shock if you didn’t know about it.

In general, any creditor or debt collector who agrees to reduce the balance you owe by $600 or more is required to report that to the IRS. They file a form 1099-C and send you a copy. 

“People tend to miss this because they didn’t see any cash from the debt settlement and therefore they just assume this is not income,” explained Certified Public Accountant Carmen Aguiar, CEO of The Aguiar Group in Bellevue, Wash. “This puts you at risk of being audited or hit with penalties and interest.”

Credit counselors tell me some people are surprised to get the 1099-C form in the mail.

“A lot of these creditors and debt settlement companies don’t disclose when the settlement is negotiated that the consumer can expect this tax liability later on,” said Bruce McClary, director of media relations with Clearpoint Credit Counseling Solutions.

And there’s no law that requires them to provide this information. So when a letter arrives from a past credit or collection agency, it’s easy to assume that it’s trash and throw it away.

“The way they find out that they owe taxes on the settlement is when they hear from the IRS asking why they didn’t pay a tax liability reported by their creditor,” McClary said.

The IRS expects to get 6.5 million 1099-C debt forgiveness forms this tax season. Tax preparers say it’s important to make sure the information is correct.

“They are not always accurate,” Aguiar told me. “They may show the entire debt, not just the amount that was forgiven.”

The 1099-C is a complicated form. If you get one and don’t understand how to read it, contact a tax professional. If the information is wrong, you need to contact the company and ask that a corrected 1099-C be filed.

“You have a right to dispute the 1099-C if you believe the information is incorrect and you have documentation of that,” McClary advised.

Some types of forgiven debt are exempt from federal taxes. According to CreditCards.com these include: debts discharged in bankruptcy, mortgage debt forgiven in foreclosure, debts cancelled when you are insolvent and some student loan debt. (Read: 6 Exceptions to Paying Tax on Forgiven Debt)

IRS Publication 4681: Canceled Debts, Foreclosures, Repossessions, and Abandonments

Herb Weisbaum is The ConsumerMan. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter or visit The ConsumerMan website. 

Mark Humphrey / AP file

H&R Block customers can file online or at an office, like this one.

UPDATES story to clarify that H&R Block was not the sole software company affected by the problem.

A filing error has resulted in the delay of up to 600,000 tax refunds -- among them students who need the money to pay for books and the tax receipt to apply for financial aid, the IRS said Tuesday. 

One of them is Franccesca Parodi, a 26-year-old interior design student from Seattle, who filed her taxes early this year at her neighborhood H&R Block office. She paid about $150 for 30-40 minutes with a tax consultant. 

When the $2,500 refund Parodi was expecting didn’t show up, and the IRS Where’s My Refund? feature online said her tax return was still being processed, she went to the H&R Block website to see if others were having the same problem. That’s when she learned that Form 8863, relating to student tax credits, had been filed incorrectly. 

On H&R Block's blog and Facebook page, she saw thousands of angry customers sounding off. She wrote that she, too, was frustrated.  

H&R Block explained that the form had changed, and that in previous years, five lines on the form could be left blank for a “no” answer. Starting this year, preparers must enter an “N” in those fields or risk a delay. The tax-filing company said it learned about the tax form change after it had submitted hundreds of thousands of tax returns. The IRS said it was aware of the problem and it is continuing to review the situation and work with "affected software companies to assist in the processing of those tax returns."  

In separate statements on Tuesday, H&R Block and the IRS said those who submitted tax returns between Feb. 14 and Feb. 22 would receive their tax refunds within 21 days -- not eight weeks as stated in an earlier letter from the IRS to those impacted.  

“We want to assure the impacted clients that we are doing everything we can," H&R Block said in a statement. "The IRS has informed us and other impacted providers that they are currently processing returns.”

In a statement, the IRS said: “While the number of tax returns affected is around 10 percent of the total returns claiming the credit, the IRS continues working aggressively to address this situation and hopes to reduce those projected refund time frames further.”

About 6.6 million tax returns include Form 8863, although only about 10 percent are affected, the IRS confirmed to NBC News. 

For Parodi, 26, the new timeline for her refund not good enough. Financial aid officers at her school told her that if she didn’t file her return from the IRS, she would likely not receive grants to pay for school. Her part-time waitressing job at Kells Irish Restaurant & Pub in downtown Seattle brings in less than $20,000 a year, and she worries she won't be able to afford school this summer. 

Hoping for more answers, she returned to the H&R Block office Tuesday, where she was assured the problem had been fixed.

Parodi said she is overwhelmed, but that she doesn’t want to demand a refund from H&R Block because she is preparing for finals.

“They’re not assuming responsibility, they’re saying it’s the IRS," she said. "I’m like, ‘What do I do? Stay here and fight with these people all day or go home and do my homework?’” she said.

H&R Block, the nation's largest tax preparer, posted updates to its Facebook page and apologized on its blog to individual filers who have complained.

H&R Block isn’t the only tax filing company that has been in trouble recently. Last week, the Minnesota Department of Revenue warned taxpayers against using TurboTax to file their state income taxes, finding 10,000 returns had problems, according to the St. Paul Pioneer Press. 

In a terse statement Friday, the Minnesota Department of Revenue said it would stop processing tax returns filed through Intuit -- which operates TurboTax -- if the problem is not fixed.  

As for Parodi, she says she’ll either file by pen and paper next year, or she’ll ask a friend for help.

“Nobody told me anything,” she said. “They didn’t even call us. I had to go to their office and talk to them, ask what’s going on? I’m very unhappy.”

Despite higher tax bills this year, the richest Americans will keep spending. If a pullback in savings continues over the long term, however, some economists say an unexpected consequence could be the erosion of investment capital.

The top income tax rate is now 39.6 percent, and the top 1 percent of households will pay, on average, 35.5 percent in combined income and other federal taxes on income of $1.4 million, according to the Tax Policy Center, a research group.

"I think the way taxes are going up on the wealthy, it’s probably for the foreseeable future," said Maury Harris, UBS managing director and chief U.S. economist.

In a recent report, Harris wrote, “[T]ax increases on the affluent... should not have much negative consumption impacts as the affluent trim their savings.”

For now, this is good news — it's better to keep the wealthy spending their money, Karen Dynan, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said via email. "One of the reasons that the economy hasn’t recovered more quickly from the Great Recession is that consumer demand has been weak."

If companies see spending or confidence nosedive, they'll retrench at the expense of the labor market, she said. "If businesses come to doubt that people will keep spending, they’ll be even more reluctant to hire than they already are."

Conventional wisdom would suggest that more consumer spending always is good for the economy, but Harris said this sustained spending, especially by the richest households, comes at an expense. “It’s not like this money was being stuffed under a pillow,” he said. “In the longer run, the consequence is that you’re reducing the amount of seed money in the economy.”

As of 2004, the top 1 percent of earners socked away a little more than half their income, money that was funneled into the stock market, private equity, real estate and a host of other investment vehicles.

One reason the affluent save so much is because they want a cushion against volatility or years when their portfolios could go into the red, said Jonathan Skinner, professor of economics at Dartmouth University. "Others may want to prepare for retirement... Still others may be accumulating assets in a company so that they can continue to control the company," he said via email.

Skinner suggests a shortfall in investment by the 1 percent could be countered by a surge of investment from overseas. "This decline in new domestic savings could, however, be offset by foreign [investors] seeking a higher return in the U.S.," he said.

Harris concedes that a pullback in savings and investment by the wealthy won't cause short-term pain in capital markets. "For the time being, there's plenty of investment capital," he said, thanks to loose monetary policy and a relaxation of bank lending standards.

But over the long term, Harris said tax policy needs to encourage savings rather than spending to fuel the economic engine of capital markets.

Dynan agreed, pointing out that countries where people save more have higher rates of business investment. "Higher investment is associated with stronger productivity growth. If wealthier Americans were to pull back on saving, it could hurt the productive capacity of our economy," she said.

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