IRS has issued proposed regs designed to expand the making of electronic tax deposits. The regs would eliminate the use of paper-based federal tax deposit (FTD) coupons after 2010. The existing rules for making electronic deposits would otherwise generally remain unchanged.
Currently, taxpayers whose aggregate annual deposits of certain taxes exceed $200,000 are generally required to use Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) to make FTDs. Taxes taken into account in determining whether the $200,000 threshold has been met include withheld income and FICA taxes, corporate income and estimated taxes, certain taxes imposed on tax-exempt organizations, taxes withheld on nonresident aliens and foreign corporations, estimated taxes of certain trusts, FUTA taxes, and excise taxes, as well as others. Once taxpayers exceed the $200,000 threshold, they have a one–year grace period before being required to use EFT, and then they are required to use EFT in all later years even if their deposits fall below the threshold. The Electronic Federal Tax Payment System (EFTPS) is the EFT system currently used by IRS to collect FTDs. Continue reading →