Tax Administration

IRS Needs to Assess Options to Make Faster Deposits of Large Tax Payments Gao ID: GGD-90-120 August 31, 1990

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the timeliness of Internal Revenue Service (IRS) deposits of tax payments to determine the lost interest associated with delays in depositing individual income tax payments around April 15 each year.

GAO found that: (1) the Cincinnati and Philadelphia Service Centers received and deposited about 2.5 million remittances, worth a total of about $6 billion, from April 15 to May 7, 1990; (2) IRS deposited remittances received around mid-April in an average of 7 days, instead of the 24-hour deposit average it achieved when receipts were at normal levels; (3) IRS doubted that it would be cost-effective to purchase additional equipment and hire the additional staff necessary to meet an annual surge in receipts; (4) having a separate mailing address for large tax payments could help IRS reduce deposit times; and (5) expediting the deposit of large tax payments could increase government interest earnings.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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