IRS Reports Significant Spike in Visits to IRS.gov and Taxpayers Using E-Filing Technology
CCH (http://tax.cchgroup.com/) reports:
The IRS will move from the process of modernization to actually arriving at “being modern” within the next year or two, IRS officials forecasted during the Council for Electronic Revenue Communication Advancement (CERCA) Spring 2009 conference held on April 30 in Arlington, Va. IRS Deputy Commissioner Mark Ernst and IRS Electronic Tax Administration Director David Williams both reiterated the Service’s continuing commitment to utilizing electronic administration to promote taxpayer service, compliance and enforcement. Williams also said that the IRS’s “focus on stakeholders is critical to [the IRS's] success” and administration of the Tax Code, and promised increased outreach to practitioners.
Latest Filing Statistics
According to Williams, so far this filing season, 71 percent of the returns received by the IRS have been e-filed. “It’s been a wild filing season,” said Williams. He added that “this year, we anticipate overall growth in efile.” Williams reported that the number of receipts has dropped from 2008, acknowledging that this was expected due to the 2008 economic stimulus payments. To receive the payment, taxpayers ordinarily not required to file returns did so.
Williams reported a “significant” spike in people e-filing themselves, from 26 million at this time in 2008, to 31 million. “This is a significant jump,” he said. In light of these numbers, according to Williams, tax software is “even more and more important.”
Williams attributed to the growth in individuals filing themselves to a few major developments. One of the “biggest drivers,” he speculated, “may be that the big software providers are not charging a fee to efile.” He also attributed the jump to people becoming more and more comfortable going online and “things electronic.”
Most of the jump in e-filing took place on the taxpayer, do-it-yourself level. According to Williams, the number of returns filed by preparers remained “flat,” and there was no significant increase or decrease from 2008. The vast majority of preparers were already on board filing electronically.
Williams also revealed that there has “been a significant decline” in use of the free-file program. He declined to give numbers as he is still working on analysis of the issue.
Visits to IRS.gov Increasing
This filing season, the IRS’s website logged more than 190 million visits and received more than 1 billion hits. Williams anticipates that by this time in 2010, the IRS’s website will get more than 2 billion hits. Williams said that traffic to its “Where’s My Refund?” website alone increased 150 percent in 2009, garnering 60 million visits.
Information Technology Update
Ernst revealed that the IRS hopes to move from the “modernization” stage to being “modern” in the next several years. He hopes to see the IRS become adept at “technology portfolio management,” where the IRS is ahead of the technology curve as opposed to catching up with the latest technology after years and years of being behind in the game.
According to Williams, the Service’s “My IRS account” tool that has been in the works “has been put on ice for awhile.” The function would have allowed users to authenticate and then get access to three years of tax returns and transcripts. However, the IRS “is rethinking the overall investment” to determine if taxpayers would utilize this function and whether it would help the most taxpayers, as opposed to focusing the IRS’s limited resources on developing other functions that would better serve taxpayers.
Modernized Efile Rollout
Williams reported that the IRS is still debating the timing of its 1040 MeF rollout date. However, the IRS does intend to deploy the first release of the MeF 1040 in January 2010. The Service is also planning to deploy a new set of schedules at that time as well. Williams added that the IRS may release with this first round a Schedule L for the standard deduction, which he acknowledged is becoming “a lot less standard.”
Making Work Pay Schedule
In addition, Williams reported that the IRS will add a Schedule M, Making Work Pay Credit, to the 2009 Form 1040. He revealed that a separate form was needed in light of the many errors the IRS has seen regarding the economic stimulus payments. In that case, the IRS had only developed a worksheet, not a separate form, for the payment.
By Hilary Goehausen, CCH News Staff
Follow me on Twitter @taxresolution
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Tags: CCH News, e-file, filing tax returns, irs.gov, Making Work Pay Credit, Michael Rozbruch, modernization of IRS, tax expert, tax filing statistics, tax resolution, tax resolution expert, tax resolution services
January 15th, 2010 at 3:35 pm
[...] IRS has been working for some time to encourage e-filing instead of paper filing for tax returns. Since the service is free on the IRS website, many taxpayers are choosing the online filing route [...]