Giving Some Credit to the Tax Folks

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The Indiana Department of Revenue (IDOR), and its counterparts across the country, deal in numbers — big numbers. At the end of April, the agency released some statistics about the 2010 tax season. Here’s a few to ponder:

  • More than 140,000 phone calls to IDOR during the tax season, including an average of 1,100 a day in the first two weeks of April. (The agency touts its on-hold times decreased from over four minutes to less than three minutes per call)
  • More than 1.6 million refunds in 2010 compared to about 1.5 million a year earlier. Average refund amount: $324 this year; $279 in 2009
  • The push for more electronic returns continues — and with good reason. It costs the state about $2.3 million to process one million paper returns, but just $150,000 to process more than two million electronic returns; accuracy is 99% for electronic returns and less than 80% for paper returns; and refunds directly into taxpayers’ accounts from electronic returns are issued in an average of three days, while the paper route takes between six and 12 weeks

In the "I didn’t know that category," IDOR says about 700,000 mailed returns come in after April 15. By the end of the calendar year, the total number of returns processed will be approximately 3.1 million.

See, I told you there were some big numbers involved. And just to make sure the agency was living up to its claims, I checked and my refund did show up within a week. Hats off to the tax men and women.

2 thoughts on “Giving Some Credit to the Tax Folks”

  1. Way to give credit where its due. I would suggest the reason for their efficiency is the high level of involvement (or at least interest) from tax payers with money directly on the line. Could all of our government agencies operate with this efficiency if we the people took a greater level of interest in holding them accountable? After all, it is ALWAYS our tax money on the line, even if we don’t see it directly.

  2. Taxpayers are getting ripped off again with the RTA. The reasoning behind this transit system is to grab as much money as you can to accomplish almost nothing. It makes no sense for the route from South Chicago to Highland and Munster? A route to the gov.Center in Crown Point? South Lake Co. has NO benefits whatsoever–just give N. Lake Co. money. Lake Co. voters should have had an input on this mess. Of course, “it was too expensive to put on a ballot” They knew it would have been voted down, so they conveniently avoided the process…outrageous!

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