IRS outs paper filers as 'minority'

Feds prefer 'strong, smooth' E-filers

By Ashlee Vance in Chicago • Get more from this author

Posted in Public Sector, 28th April 2005 21:18 GMT

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The age of the luddite tax payer has passed with more than half of US punters sending in their returns via the internet for the first time.

Close to 66m of the 120m returns filed so far arrived at the IRS electronically. That total of e-filed returns marks an 11 percent increase over last year's 59m electronic returns. The IRS is darn excited about the jump in electronic returns, saying federal workers are the happiest they've ever been due to the internet efficiency.

"I’d like to thank IRS workers, tax professionals and tax volunteers for putting in long hours during the tax season," said IRS Commissioner Mark Everson. "Their hard work, coupled with the growth in electronic services, made this one of the best filing seasons we’ve ever seen.”

Everson would later become even more enamored with the filing season, upping its rating from "best" to "strong and smooth." Then, he rightly outed paper filers as a type of backward, dying breed.

“The IRS saw a strong, smooth filing season across the board,” Everson said. “The filing season results confirm what we’ve said all along. For the first time, more than half of all taxpayers filed electronically. Paper filers are now in the minority.”

Close to 17m people filed their returns from a home computer, while another 46m returns came in from tax professionals. The number of e-filed and "minority" returns will go up in the coming months as laggards who requested extensions file their forms.

So far, the IRS has paid out $181bn in refunds with the average refund coming to $2,144. ®