IRS e-filing misses target

IRS e-file information

A record number of people filed their taxes electronically this year, but the numbers fell short of the Internal Revenue Service's targets.

The number of tax returns filed electronically jumped 13 percent to 39.45 million this year, according to IRS numbers, up from 34.91 million who filed electronically last year.

Although the numbers represent a significant increase, they are less than the IRS' projections. The IRS initially had set a goal of having 42 million people file electronically, but earlier this year the agency revised the goal to 40 million.

The numbers also fall off the pace that will be necessary if the agency is going to meet the requirements of the 1998 IRS Restructuring and Reform Act, which calls for the IRS to receive 80 percent of all tax returns electronically by 2007. That figure, however, includes business returns, which are not included in these numbers.

By the time the e-filing program ends later this year, the IRS expects to receive nearly 40 million returns electronically, representing more than 30 percent of individual taxpayers.

The IRS said 6.6 million people used their home computers to file — an increase of 35 percent over last year. The number of returns filed electronically by tax professionals showed an increase of about 14 percent to 28.41 million.

The number of returns filed using IRS's TeleFile system, which lets certain taxpayers file via telephone, fell by 14 percent to 4.4 million.

The IRS Web site continued to be popular. The site chalked up more than 1.5 billion hits from January through April 16 this year, a 57 percent increase from last year. IRS said that the number of forms and documents downloaded topped 103 million through February, double the number downloaded over the same period last year.

The number of people using direct deposit for their tax refunds also increased to 31 million, a jump of 14.5 percent.

IRS Commissioner Charles Rossotti said that the record number of taxpayers filing electronically was part of "one of the best filing seasons ever, even as the agency continued putting in place its most sweeping reorganization in decades."

The agency's new management structure has been in place only since October, Rossotti said.