Washington (July 11, 2003) -- Practitioners -- the Internal Revenue Service feels your pain about e-filing, and says your complaints are being resolved.
During the July “Tax Talk Today” Internet broadcast, IRS Strategic Services director Jo Ann Bass assured tax professionals that technical glitches have been ironed out, and it should be smooth sailing from here on.
“We’re responding to tax professionals, because we know how important it is for them to make their offices as all-electronic as possible,” Bass said. She added that later this summer the agency will be visiting with tax firms across the country, asking what more it can do to “bring them into” electronic filing.
Tax maven Claudia Hill, an Enrolled Agent and owner of Tax Mam Inc. of Cupertino, Calif., told viewers during the broadcast that she was among those practitioners who experienced problems with e-filing. “I know the old problems – we’ve been e-filing since 1989,” she said. “But believe me, the technology is greatly improved. It works for us now.”
Kevin Belden, associate partner, IBM Strategic Consulting Services, said that for the agency to reach its e-filing goal--80 percent of all 1040s by 2007--it has to also win over more business filers. Belden chairs the IRS Electronic Tax Administration Advisory Committee, and he said the committee will urge Congress that “the business case must be made for both practitioners and small business owners. Electronic filing has to make sense from a business perspective.”
Previous programs of Tax Talk Today® and the July broadcast, entitled “Everything’s Electronic,” are available in the archives at
-- WebCPA staff
