Taxpayer Advocate Directs IRS to Use Scanning for Paper Returns

National Taxpayer Advocate Erin Collins this week directed the IRS to take steps to implement scanning technologies, in an effort to speed up the IRS’s ability to process paper tax returns.

Collins issued a directive Tuesday that instructs the IRS to work with software companies to formulate a plan for the businesses to put 2-D bar codes on returns prepared with their products that are then filed on paper, starting with next year’s tax filing season. The directive also calls for the IRS to develop a plan to use optical character recognition or similar technology, by the ...