As the April 15 deadline for individual taxes draws closer, more news from the IRS was announced this week. The government agency found that with staff cuts and administrative changes, it has saved more than $1 billion since 2010. While the IRS may deal with significantly more paper and funds than the average office, the practices of moving away from a paper-heavy habits and towards paperless tax forms and other documents can nevertheless be adapted by other businesses as well.
According to an article in and-contracts/62341/?oref=dropdown” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>Government Executive, the IRS lost $305 million due to budget cuts in 2012, and was forced to cut its staff by 8,000 positions, limit travel and training for employees. With current and future sequestration cuts coming, these practices may continue if funds aren’t recovered.
In addition to the previously mentioned money-saving methods, the IRS was able to cut back on office space with more reliance on telework, and “saved on printing and postage by abandoning past practice of mailing tax forms to taxpayers every tax season, and it converted to paperless earnings and leave statements.”
These adaptations prove the extent of the savings that can be achieved by switching to a paperless office, or, for some businesses, adopting a 1099 processing service or other e-filing tax system. With digital documents, and the help of a document scanning service to get there, companies are able to cut back on office space and the funds needed to store records, communicate with others more efficiently through video conferencing or other electronic forms, and, as always, save money on printing and sending paper. While billions of dollars may not be at stake, other paper-heavy offices can benefit in a similar manner.
Tab Service Company is a Chicago based company and the leading provider of document scanning services and data entry services. As an SOC2-approved service organization, we apply industry-best practices to our approach with clients.