GE Files Largest Electronic Tax Return In US History

by Mike Godfrey, Tax-News.com, Washington

02 June 2006

The US Internal Revenue Service has announced that General Electric Corp. has filed the largest electronic tax return in the nation's history, an event that was hailed by IRS chief Mark W. Everson as a "major milestone" in the agency's corporate e-file program.

According to the IRS, GE's 237 megabyte filing on May 18, 2006, was acknowledged by the agency in about an hour. The same return in the old paper format would have left agency staff wading through approximately 24,000 pages of data.

“Having GE file electronically shows the program is working,” commented IRS Commissioner Mark W. Everson.

“Having the largest tax return is a major milestone for the corporate e-file program. I appreciate GE’s work to get this done," he added.

This is the first year that certain large corporations with assets in excess of $50 million have been required to file electronically. The IRS expects more than 10,000 of these large corporations to e-file by the extended filing date of Sept. 15, 2006. More than 4,750 large corporations have already e-filed this year, including 3,042 with assets of $50 million or more.

“For GE, digitization is a strategic priority,” noted John Samuels, VP and Senior Tax Counsel for the company, who praised the IRS for allocating resources "around the clock, seven days a week" to help GE complete its e-tax return.

"Recent changes announced by the IRS to simplify reporting requirements and reduce impediments to e-filing are more steps in the right direction. We look forward to state and local jurisdictions implementing e-filing to reduce the burden and cost of tax return compliance," Mr Samuels stated.

The IRS says that e-filing enables faster, more accurate processing and quicker interactions between the IRS and taxpayers, and it is expected to reduce by millions of pages the paper sent to the IRS and stored there.

“The corporate e-file effort helps improve audit efficiency while reducing the cost of transcribing data from paper to the IRS database,” observed Deborah Nolan, Commissioner of the IRS Large and Mid-Size Business Division.

“We worked with tax professionals, software developers and corporate taxpayers to remove barriers to facilitate taxpayers’ ability to comply with the mandate. GE’s experience shows that taxpayers with very large and complex returns can e-file, and our systems can handle it," she noted.

E-file has been available to corporations on a voluntary basis since 2004. In 2005, more than 200,000 corporations filed their corporate income tax returns electronically.

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