IRS site to make filing less taxing
The system also will allow taxpayers to check the status of their taxes anytime on the Web, and to have quarterly estimated taxes deducted automatically from their bank accounts. The step attempts to move the notoriously bureaucratic Internal Revenue Service closer to a long-sought goal of becoming more like banks and credit-card companies in this regard.
The current electronic-payment system requires filers to use special software and dial into the Treasury's computer system. Just under two million companies--mainly big ones--use the cumbersome process, while about nine million either have declined to sign up or have registered but rarely used it. A mere 12,500 individuals file using the electronic system, though more do indirectly through preparers, according to the Treasury.
"This offers direct access" for the first time, Dam said. "We are, amazingly enough, real leaders in various aspects of e-government." The system will be available for taxpayers to use this week at the Web site of the Electronic Federal Tax Payment System, www.eftps.com.
Dam described the new electronic-tax plan in his first lengthy interview since taking office last month. The one-time International Business Machines Corp. executive's portfolio at the Treasury will include technology matters.
Dam, a deputy secretary of state during the Reagan administration, also will handle certain diplomatic matters, acting as Treasury's representative on the White House National Security Council.
In that role, he will travel to India next week to further the Bush administration's recent moves toward "deeper engagement" with that nation and helping improve strained commercial ties between the U.S. and India. Dam confirmed that the administration is considering lifting sanctions against India imposed three years ago after its successful nuclear-weapons tests. "There really haven't been any high points in U.S.-India relations in a long time," Dam said. During his stay in Asia, he also will become the administration's first senior economic official to visit South Korea and will stop in Japan.
Treasury officials hope the 69-year-old Dam's long-delayed assumption of the department's No.2 slot will help stabilize Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill's sometimes shaky reign. While O'Neill tapped Dam back in January, Sen. Jesse Helms (R., N.C.), locked in a dispute with Treasury's Customs Service over textile imports, blocked a confirmation vote on Dam and many other Treasury nominees until early August. Dam and others worked for the Treasury until then as "consultants" and were limited in the duties they could perform.
"He's a person who doesn't have any hesitation to tell me the truth; if I'm off the edge, he tells me," O'Neill said. Referring to their 30-year friendship, which began when the two were staffers at President Nixon's Office of Management and Budget, O'Neill said: "He doesn't feel any inhibitions about saying to me, 'You're pressing the limit.' " Dam also is working on resolving a nasty trade dispute with Europe over tax breaks given to American exporters, a policy the World Trade Organization has ruled improper and which has drawn European Union threats of sanctions totaling $4 billion. He said the administration is torn about whether to appeal the WTO ruling, and that officials are struggling to fashion a response in the event an appeal fails.
Dam, currently on leave from the University of Chicago Law School, will be the Treasury's point man in the administration's blitz to press Congress for fast-track authority to negotiate free-trade agreements.
He said he will also push trading partners to lift barriers for U.S. financial-service companies. "We certainly think it would be in the interests of both the U.S. and many developing countries," he said. "We have a comparative advantage in providing financial services."