As part of its ongoing crusade to increase the number of taxpayers who e-file, the IRS issued a request for information from firms for ways to lower or make free the cost to taxpayers of e-filing.

IRS assistant commissioner for the Electronic Tax Administration Robert Barr noted that IRS and private sector research showed that one of the biggest barriers to getting taxpayers to e-file is the cost. While some software makers offer free online tax prep and e-filing services, others charge a fee that many taxpayers are reluctant to pay.

Responding to the IRS' request, CPA William Bonner, of William A. Bonner Jr. CPA Firm in Austin, Texas said: "My firm has never filed returns electronically. I have checked on doing so numerous times, but it is not advantageous in any way for my firm to use the e-system."

"If the IRS wants them to be filed this way, the IRS should furnish free software to practitioners," said Bonner, a former IRS agent. "If the IRS won't furnish the software, maybe the IRS will start paying the practitioner for filing this way to offset the practitioners' cost."

Bonner noted that practitioners not only have to pay a fee for every return filed electronically to the software company, but they also have to take the time to train a staff member to use it. Another problem with e-filing Bonner cited is that "you cannot attach descriptions or explanatory notes. On many occasions, it is imperative to attach an explanation."

"It does not help the practitioner in any way," he added. "It costs the practitioner money; it saves the IRS millions."

Free software provided by the IRS to professionals would help, agreed Connie Langston, of Affordable Accounting Services in Chanhassen, Minn.

"The software is expensive and it takes more time to file electronically," she said. "The additional data input, the transmitting and checking rejected returns add up. We are doing the data entry for the IRS and not receiving any benefit from them."

"We have to charge the client, which is really asking the client to pay for the work the IRS used to do," Langston said. "The client should not have to pay, but owners like myself cannot absorb the extra work without compensation."

In addition, Langston noted, "to offer free service on the Internet for electronic filing is only going to increase correspondence and audits for taxpayers not knowing what they are doing."

"If the IRS wants to lower costs for e-filing, it should first do more to reduce the cumbersome filing process by which such returns are filed," said CPA Paul J. Sullivan. "Our government has created a monstrous tax system that virtually no one completely understands and practitioners can barely keep up with all compliance requirements; for the IRS to tell the private sector anything about tax filing can only make one cynical about our tax system, if they aren't already."

-- By Melissa Klein

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