The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has announced plans to digitize most taxpayer-filed documents by 2025, under the Paperless Processing Initiative.
This year, 20 additional tax forms will be available for electronic filing, with another 150 of the most-used documents to be made accessible by 2025, even via mobile phones for those without home broadband access. The initiative is set to eliminate over 200 million pages of paper annually, halving processing times, and potentially enabling taxpayers to receive their refunds weeks earlier. The transition to electronic forms is expected to save the IRS around $40 million per year in storage costs.
Despite the push towards digitization, the IRS anticipates that around 76 million people will continue to file their taxes using paper returns and forms. These physical documents will be promptly digitized, and the paper recycled, maintaining alignment with the agency’s paperless goal.
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