09/06/2024 | News release | Distributed by Public on 09/06/2024 03:04
$172 million recovered from 21,000 wealthy taxpayers who have not filed tax returns since 2017 in first six months of new initiative
WASHINGTON-Today, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Janet L. Yellen and Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service Danny Werfel are delivering remarks at the Austin, Texas IRS campus to announce new milestones under Inflation Reduction Act initiatives to ensure wealthy individuals pay taxes owed, improve service for taxpayers through the Digital First Initiative, and modernize foundational technology.
Ensuring High-Income, High-Wealth Taxpayers Pay Taxes Owed
Improving Taxpayer Service Through the Digital First Initiative
With Inflation Reduction Act resources, the IRS is significantly improving taxpayer service in person, over the phone, and online. The IRS is working to deliver the same modern online experience that taxpayers experience with their bank or financial institutions. Using Inflation Reduction Act resources, the IRS has created and enhanced popular and convenient online tools that save taxpayers time and money, while also reducing phone calls, paper processes, and other burdens on IRS employees. For example, in Filing Season 2024, IRS updated the "Where's My Refund?" tool to provide more detailed refund status information in plain language, increasing use by nearly 30%.
Thanks to Inflation Reduction Act resources, the IRS has launched more digital tools in the last two years than the previous 20 years, including:
Through the Digital First Initiative, the IRS is pursuing a vision where taxpayers can do all their transactions with the IRS digitally if they prefer. At the core of that improved digital experience for taxpayers are enhancements to Individual Online Account. Thanks to funding from the Inflation Reduction Act, taxpayers can now:
Through the Simple Notice Initiative, the IRS is also redesigning up to 200 individual taxpayer notices to be shorter and clearer, reducing taxpayer frustration and the number of phone calls requiring live assistance, for Filing Season 2025. The IRS has completed 109 notices as of the end of July 2024.
Additionally, Tax Pro Online Account rolled out more self-service options for tax professionals, including easier navigation to secure two-way messaging where authorized tax professionals can digitally communicate with the IRS on behalf of their clients. The IRS is also continuing to expand the features within Business Tax Account, an online self-service tool for business taxpayers that now allows them to view and submit balance-due payments. The account is also now accessible in Spanish, with more translations planned.
Modernizing 65-Year-Old Foundational Technology to Improve Taxpayer Service and Better Secure Taxpayer Data
For 65 years, the IRS has relied on the same foundational technology for many of its critical systems, including the Individual Master File (IMF), which houses taxpayer data and feeds into key systems. The core technology, based on ALC and COBOL coding, has become a liability due to the diminishing pool of experts proficient in this legacy language.
The IRS has reached a critical milestone in modernizing a core technology component of the Individual Master File, by porting the outdated Assembly-based codebase to Java, a more modern, more sustainable language. Reflecting the agency's focus on technology best practices, this new system, Integrated Tax Processing Engine (ITPE), is now running simultaneously with IMF to verify accuracy of its data processing. The system's data will be hosted in the Enterprise Data Platform, a modern, cloud-based system for managing data.
Making taxpayer history available in a modern data environment is a key step toward the IRS implementing real-time data processing with platforms that will enable transactions to be processed more quickly, transparently, and securely. These improvements are a critical enabler for the IRS's Digital First Initiative. For example, it will improve taxpayer service by allowing taxpayers and customer service representatives to access real-time account information in the future just as any bank or financial institution does. These improvements will also empower IRS to implement tax code changes and emergency benefit programs more quickly, while reducing the costs of maintaining IRS systems. This project was delayed for years due to underfunding.
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