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Why The IRS Should Pay You $3 to Efile

Posted By Jim On 02/15/2012 @ 7:06 am In Taxes | 7 Comments

My friend Kay at Don’t Mess With Taxes looked through some information provided by the Government Accountability Office and discovered that the IRS estimated it saved $3.10 per e-filed return [3]. The information is on page one of the report [4] by the GAO in the footnote.

It’s estimated that, in 2009, it cost $3.29 to process a paper return compared to only nineteen cents for an electronic return. It should surprise no one that processing a paper return is more expensive but even I didn’t expect it to be over seventeen times more expensive. This is an improvement over 2008, when it cost $2.87 to process a paper return and 35 cents to process an electronic one.

So it’s kind of funny that it costs money to e-file.

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[3] saved $3.10 per e-filed return: http://dontmesswithtaxes.typepad.com/dont_mess_with_taxes/2012/01/irs-saves-310-on-each-e-filed-return.html

[4] page one of the report: http://www.gao.gov/assets/320/316354.pdf

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