A front-page story in Sunday's newspaper focused on the potential for increased costs of processing tax returns because taxpayers were going to file with paper income tax returns rather than file electronically.

The last paragraph of the story indicated that the "fix" for encrypting stored data would not be completed until the end of April. Given that it has taken the state of South Carolina this long to fix the second of two issues that led to last year's hacking of taxpayer information, why don't they allow taxpayers to file their electronic returns after this fix has been completed and tested?

Even when the governor said that affected taxpayers would be notified by the end of December, it was only last week that the state began to notify by email taxpayers who had signed up for credit monitoring and provided an email address.

Has the state's management of this situation made us feel secure and confident that they will complete the final security fix? I think not.

Steven Fells

Callawassie Island