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IRS to Require Electronic Filing |
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The U.S. Treasury Department says that the Internal Revenue Service will shortly undertake a rulemaking to require almost all entities that file federal employment taxes to file them electronically, using Treasury’s Electronic Federal Tax Payment System, or EFTPS. Treasury notes that 98 percent of employment tax dollars already move through the system, which has nearly 10 million registered users. It notes also that the great proportion even of small family businesses, a category that apparently includes many of the continuing paper filers, have internet access and already bank on-line. It also points out that processing the paper coupons submitted with the filings costs banks a relatively large amount, which they are prohibited from passing on. More and more financial institutions, says the department, no longer allow their branches to accept employment tax deposits. For these reasons, and because the system is also cheaper and less prone to error for the government as well as for filers, electronic filing is expected to become mandatory effective at the end of 2010. Businesses that are not currently required to submit a coupon with their deposits would not be covered.
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