A statement from U.S. Senator Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) made on June 1, 2023: “Madam President, the Inflation Reduction Act, IRA, contained a provision for the Internal Revenue Service, IRS, to spend $15 million to deliver a report to Congress on an IRS-run and maintained “Direct eFile” tax return system. This was not a bipartisan provision….
‘Direct file’ is a waste of time and money. Private companies and nonprofit organizations do just fine.
Looking forward to next April 15? Neither are we. Nobody likes paying taxes. But most Americans realize that living in this country isn’t just a privilege, but a great bargain, too. Taxes come with the territory.
The Internal Revenue Service joined with representatives of tax preparation and software firms, payroll and tax financial product processors and state tax administrators to announce a sweeping new collaborative effort to combat identity theft refund fraud and protect the nation’s taxpayers.
New research shows that Refund Transfers (RTs) provide substantial value to unbanked individuals and, on the whole, improve consumer welfare. The study was conducted by John Friedman, Assistant Professor of Public Policy at Harvard University’s Kennedy School and a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research, and his findings were published [PDF]…
For years, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has been criticized for its antiquated processes and Information Technology (IT) systems. This analysis explores the current state of the IRS’s appropriations and aims to understand how the agency is spending on programs that are critical to upgrading and modernizing their internal systems to meet the demands required…
The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA, Public Law No: 117-169) appropriates an additional $79.6B to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) through the end of FY2031. This includes $45.6B for tax enforcement, $25.3B for operations support, $3.2B for taxpayer services and $4.8B for business systems modernization. Additionally, the IRA appropriates $15M to the IRS to…
The 2022 Budget Reconciliation bill may ultimately contain a well- funded provision that directs the IRS to evaluate the development of an IRS-operated free tax filing system. Recent experience with similar government-run ventures indicate that the federal government is ill-equipped to develop such a system. An IRS-run tax filing system would require substantial investments in…
The American Coalition for Taxpayer Rights (ACTR) was formed in 2011 by the nation’s leading retail tax preparation and tax software companies and financial institutions, which collectively prepare and file more than 120 million of the 155 million federal tax returns annually. ACTR advocates for taxpayer rights and strengthens America’s voluntary tax compliance system.
