Last year, taxpayers made 63 million federal tax payments via the EFTPS, up 14 percent over 1999. More than $1.5 trillion came in over the wires, a 15 percent jump. The number of taxpayers enrolled in the system has increased to exceed three million, its highest level ever, the agency reported.

The EFTPS continues to grow in 2001, with 7.5 million transactions recorded in January, a Niagara of revenue that exceeded $166 billion. Jan. 31 marked the busiest day on record, with 1,473,144 transactions, the IRS said.

Terence H. Lutes, director of the Electronic Tax Administration, says the EFT payment system is 99.9 percent accurate for properly filed payments and that taxpayers are encouraged by the greater speed of acknowledgements and refunds for returns filed electronically.

Electronic filing of combined federal/state returns is also up. As of late February, more than eight million taxpayers electronically filed a combined federal/state return, 20 percent more than at the same time last year, the agency reported.

As of Feb. 23, 22.6 million taxpayers -- 58 percent of the total -- have filed their federal returns by wire. The total number of returns received by Feb. 23 was 1.9 percent lower than on February 25 of last year, but the number of e-filings was 7 percent ahead this year. TeleFiles (filing by phone) are off 17 percent from last year's rate. The average refund so far this year, including those for hardcopy filings, is $1,927, about 5 percent more than last year at this time.

-- SmartPros News Staff

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