Rep. Foster Introduces Legislation To Simplify Federal Tax Filing

Press Release

Today, on tax day, Congressman Bill Foster (IL-14) introduced legislation to simplify filling out Federal income tax forms.

"Filing a tax return requires us to keep around a bundle of tax information stubs, then fill in information that the IRS already has on file. My legislation would simply allow taxpayers to login to a secure IRS Web site, and their information would be automatically filled into downloadable tax forms," said Foster. "As a scientist and a businessman, I have consistently advocated for commonsense and money saving solutions, and this legislation exemplifies such a solution."

H.R. 5036, the Autofill Act of 2010, would establish a program at the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) that would allow individuals to log on to a secure IRS Web site and download a tax form that is automatically filled in with information that the IRS already routinely collects from their employer, the Social Security Administration and financial institutions. Information will be available as both a Printable Document File suitable for manual completion and filing, or in a computer-readable form suitable for use by automated tax preparation software.

This program does not actually calculate the amount of taxes or refunds, but simply fills in the Federally collected information that is necessary to compute them. Taxpayers may still have to enter additional information, such as changes in filing status or dependents, either by hand or using tax preparation software.

In order for taxpayers to have access to this information early enough for to be useful for filing their taxes, the legislation would require the IRS to make this information available by February 15th of each year beginning in 2011. The legislation is modeled after a successful program in California that proved tremendously popular with taxpayers.

"Our tax code is complicated enough, and taxpayers currently have the added stress associated with locating various tax records," said Foster. "My legislation would make the system more user-friendly, and would reduce the anxiety and cost associated with filling out tax forms," said Foster.

The Autofill Act will reduce tax mistakes and compliance costs. Experts estimate that a data retrieval system could save taxpayers up to 10 billion dollars in annual compliance costs.

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