He continued: “The growth in electronic services helped the IRS deliver a strong filing season for the nation’s taxpayers in 2008. The increase in e-file, particularly in the final weeks of the filing season, shows that taxpayers are continuing to recognize the benefits of filing electronically.”

More than 86 million individual tax returns have been electronically filed so far in the 2008 filing season, a 12% increase over last year at this time.

By comparison, for all of 2007 just under 80 million returns were filed electronically. In all, 60% of all returns filed so far this year came in through e-file.

A small percentage of the growth in e-file resulted from those taxpayers who were only required to file tax returns this year to claim their federal economic stimulus payments.

The 2008 tax season saw an increase in electronic filing among last-minute filers, a group that has traditionally filed paper returns.

From 12th to 18th April, the number of electronically filed returns received by the IRS was up 28% over the comparable week last year, even though the overall number of tax returns (paper and electronic) received during the same week was up only 9%.

Other highlights among statistics released by the IRS included that:

• The IRS Customer Account Data Engine (CADE) has so far processed more than 30 million individual tax returns this year, more than double the number of returns handled by the system during all of last year. CADE, which is at the heart of efforts to replace many of the agency’s aging account processing systems, dramatically speeds up internal IRS processing. CADE processes refunds on average 5 days faster than the IRS’ legacy tax return processing system.
• The IRS has received about 4.6 million Free File returns, a 21% jump over last year at this time. Free File, available only on the IRS website, will continue to accept returns through 15th October from taxpayers with incomes of USD54,000 or less.
• The number of balance-due returns filed electronically surged 21% to over 11.3 million, also a new record.
• This year’s economic-stimulus payments helped fuel a 44% increase in the number of visits to the agency’s website. The nearly 206 million visits included, for example, over 8 million to the economic stimulus calculator in April.