The Internal Revenue Service held two public meetings, in December 2011 and January 2012, to gather feedback on a potential new structure that would fundamentally change the way taxpayers and tax practitioners prepare and file individual tax returns and that leverages technological innovations. In an April 2011 speech before the National Press Club, IRS Commissioner Douglas H. Shulman described a vision in which the IRS would move away from the traditional "look back" model of compliance to a "real time" tax process. Under this vision, the IRS could embed more information return data into its pre-screening filters, and could provide the opportunity for taxpayers to fix the return before it accepts it - if the return contains data that does not match the IRS' records. The goals of this long-term initiative are to reduce burden for taxpayers and improve overall service and compliance. The public meetings featured representatives of consumer groups, the tax professional community, government, the employer and payroll community, the software industry and financial industry. Real Time Tax System Initiative Power PointPDF December 8, 2011 Meeting January 25, 2012 Meeting
