On June 23, the Electronic Tax Administration Advisory Committee (ETAAC) held its public meeting via conference call and released its Annual Report to Congress. The report includes recommendations to improve electronic tax administration and combat identity theft tax refund fraud.
APA has two members on ETAAC: Sherice McCarthy-Hill and Kimberly Pederzani. APA Director Luanne Brown, CPP, and Jenine Hallings have fulfilled their terms.
ETAAC’s Recommendations
ETAAC’s report has 10 recommendations in four broad categories. Five recommendations are of interest to payroll professionals and include accelerating the filing deadline for informational returns and increasing electronic filing goals.
ETAAC recommends that the IRS further increase its electronic filing goals as Congress set the IRS goal of 80% paperless filing 23 years ago. ETAAC recommends adding estimated tax returns, extensions, and amended returns to goal. ETAAC also said more focus is warranted on employment tax returns.
Employment tax returns continue to have the lowest e-file rate of all major return types. Although its e-file rate has increased year-over-year, the IRS said that employment return e-file rates continue to be approximately one-half of the e-file rate of most other major returns. The report partially attributes the lower return rate to electronic signature issues.
Complete coverage of the ETAAC annual report will be available in the July edition of Payroll Currently, published on July 2.
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Jyme Mariani, Esq., is Managing Editor of Payroll Currently and Payroll Information Resources for the APA.