IRS vows to digitize all taxpayer documents by 2025 [Updated]

Enlarge (credit: Bill Clark / Contributor | CQ-Roll Call, Inc.)

Today, the US Treasury Department announced that taxpayers will have the choice to go paperless for all Internal Revenue Service (IRS) correspondence in the upcoming 2024 filing season.

By 2025, the IRS plans to achieve paperless processing for all tax returns, still accepting paper documents but immediately digitizing them, to "cut processing times in half" and "expedite refunds by several weeks," the Treasury Department said.

"The IRS receives about 76 million paper tax returns and forms and 125 million pieces of correspondence, notice responses, and non-tax forms each year, and its limited capability to accept these forms digitally or digitize paper it receives has prevented the IRS from delivering the world-class service taxpayers deserve," the Treasury Department said.