Advancements and forecasts of electronic tax return and informational filings in the US

Abstract

Purpose The US Congress set the original goal that 80 per cent of all tax returns should to be filed electronically for the 2007 tax year. Unfortunately, only 70 per cent of the total returns were electronically filed (e-filed) in 2017. This paper aims to examine the longitudinal progress of total tax returns e-filed by individuals, businesses and “other” categories for the period from 2004 to 2017 and projects a timeline to attain the goal. Design/methodology/approach A comprehensive computation and analysis were performed for the volume, ratios and growth of e-filing for the major types of return. A parallel analysis was performed for the business categories. Applying various time series and exponential smoothing forecasting models, the authors projected major return e-filings for the forecast horizons from 2018 to 2025. Findings First, individual tax returns filed electronically have attained the target goal of 80 per cent since 2012, the extended deadline by Congress, so have corporations and partnerships for Fiscal Year 2017. Second, both the e-file volume and e-file rate for the grand total, individuals and businesses exhibit monotonically increasing trends over the sample period. Third, of the grand e-filings, individual returns constitute the vast majority of 84 per cent, while business e-files are less than 12 per cent. Originality/value This study is a holistic and comprehensive analysis of the adoption of e-filing in the USA. From the longitudinal analysis and the variety of forecasting models applied, the results show that the focus should be on the employment tax e-file as it stands at only 41 per cent for 2017 due to few mandates, while the returns make up 65 per cent of total business returns. The authors projected that the grand total e-filing will attain the Congressional goal of 80 per cent by 2020 along with proposed strategies and recommendations.

Perceived Ease of Use, Perceived Usefulness, Perceived Security and Intention to Use E-Filing: The Role of Technology Readiness

“…Most of the body of knowledge on electronic tax filing is centered on the issue of adoption. Such a heavy focus is understandable because usage is a critical criterion for assessing the success of innovation implemented (Koong et al, 2019). The tax e-Filing usage by the citizens was severely underused despite the availability and improvement of the technology.…”

Implications of tax audit risk, consequences, aggressive behavior and ethics for compliance

“…To deter underreporting of cash income, the tax authority can also use social media to explain how data analytics tools can enhance the analysis and integration of multiple sources of a taxpayer's income and expenses. Increased electronic filings of individual tax returns (Koong et al, 2019) facilitate automatic capture of data and utilization of data analytics tools for detecting unusual activities. Finally, tax compliance strategies can be administered to all taxpayers without screening because they are expected to increase the compliance of taxpayers with lower CFC, MACH and PRESOR scores and have less effect on those with higher CFC, MACH and PRESOR scores.…”

The Effect of Relative Advantage, Top Management Support and IT Infrastructure on E-Filing Adoption

“…However, less than 10 percent of taxpayers generally use the electronic method (TADAT 2016). This will deprive Jordanian companies as end users of the benefits of electronic filing, which are the speed of refund claims compared to the manual system and the reduction of errors associated with the manual system (Koong et al 2019).…”