Don't look now, but the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is going paperless. The “Paperless Processing Initiative,” which expects to take place by 2025, is part of its effort to reduce the heavy paperwork load that has forever defined the agency.
Announced by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel, the initiative is part of an $80 billion infusion of cash the IRS is getting over the next 10 years thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act.
According to the game plan, most filers will be able to submit everything but their tax returns digitally in 2024. With the help of its new electronic free file tax return system starting in 2024, the agency can begin to process everything, including tax returns, digitally by 2025.
For perspective, the IRS receives more than 200 million paper tax returns, forms, and pieces of mail and non-tax forms annually. In all, some 213.4 million returns and other forms were filed electronically in fiscal year 2022—81.2% of all filings, IRS data shows.
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