IRS Web-Site Now Offers Tax Refund Information

by Mike Godfrey, Tax-News.com, New York

29 May 2002

The Internal Revenue Service has begun testing a new Internet-based service that allows taxpayers to check the status of their tax refunds from a link on its web-site. This is the first time that individual tax-payers will have access to their own personal information on the IRS's computers.

"Access this secure Web site to find out if the IRS received your return and whether your refund was processed and sent to you," says the link, "To get to your refund status, you'll need to provide the following information as shown on your return:

• Your Social Security Number (or IRS Individual Tax Identification Number)
• Your Filing Status, (Single, Married Filing Joint Return, Married Filing Separate Return, Head of Household, or Qualifying Widow(er))
• The Refund amount

The IRS said the refund-status Internet program should be fully operational in time for the 2003 tax-filing season. Taxpayers who filed Form 1040, Form 1040-A or Form 1040-EZ and are due a refund may use the application. (The service also shows information for those who have already received a refund for the 2002 filing season that ended April 15.)

The IRS has ambitious goals, some of them laid down by statute, for the performance of its web-site, and after a slow start is now beginning to make real inroads into the existing paper-based mountain of its relationships with individual and corporate taxpayers, although there are doubts over whether the agency will reach its goal of 80% on-line filing by the mandated date of 2010. About 30% of households filed their tax returns electronically this year,

The web-site is also beginning to be more useful as a source of information. Earlier in the month the IRS updated the Tax Fraud section of its website in order to keep taxpayers fully abreast of the latest scams and schemes.

The updated tax fraud alerts page now provides links to news items on recent civil and criminal tax actions against promoters and participants in tax evasion schemes, and offers access to information on recent IRS enforcement efforts and warnings on current scams.

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