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DOR > About Us > Resources > Tax Talk Blog > Report card time – and what’s next Report card time – and what’s next

April 27, 2009

Thanks for reading the blog, and thanks for filing your state tax return, as most of you have by now. It may be a little early, but I wanted to share some filing results with you.

Every year some three million Hoosiers file state income tax returns. This year around two-thirds of you chose to file electronically. Whether you used a paid preparer, bought tax-filing software or used the free online filing (I-File), your decision to electronically file has cut the cost of processing those returns down to about $150,000 in operational costs (whereas paper filings cost the state about $2.3 million to process operationally, from opening mail to keypunching tax returns to handling tax computation errors). And for those who had your refund electronically deposited, more savings occurred with no check printing, cost of envelopes or postage … you really stepped up to the plate and hit it out of the park.

Well, we asked you to consider filing electronically, and you came through. So now it’s our turn to pony up – to look at what worked right, and to find where improvements can be made.

First, we apologize to those of you who got caught up in the last-minute I-File slow down. We were supposed to be able to process 30,000 electronic filings an hour, and on the last day or so we could only accommodate around 500 an hour. Online payment capability also was very slow. When we realized what was going on, the Department extended the filing deadline to Sunday, April 19, for those taxpayers who had been affected. Approximately 4,000 I-File users and 2,200 ePay users completed their sessions without incident between April 15 and April 19. We felt it was the responsible thing to do, and hope you agree.

Now begins preparation for next year’s free online state tax filing, and we need your help. Within the next couple of weeks a survey will be e-mailed to those of you who chose to use I-File. Please take a few minutes to complete the survey, and let us know what worked – and what didn’t work. Each year we use information culled from the survey results to help make the I-File program work better. In fact, here’s our promise to you – you tell us what needs to be improved, and we’ll make sure it makes it to the table for consideration.

We believe that partnering with savvy users is both smart and beneficial. And in the end, it benefits everyone. That’s what I call a true win-win!