The printed word has helped humanity thrive for thousands of years, passing down our myths, equations, discoveries, and greatest scientific thinking. So how has paper—once so essential to proliferating information and data, once the ultimate form of communication from scrolls to textbooks—become the very thing hobbling our government’s efficiency?
Paper’s No Longer Cutting It—No Pun Intended
Look no further than the United States Internal Revenue Service (IRS), where National Taxpayer Advocate Erin M. Collins says the agency’s “archaic” tax return paper processing led to a backlog in the tens of millions. “The IRS still has not implemented technology to machine read [returns], so each digit on every paper return must be manually keystroked into IRS systems by an employee.”
Every digit. And those keystrokes aren’t minimal, with several hundred to more than a thousand required for each paper return to be manually digitized. You don’t need me to remind you how often we make typing mistakes to have you consider how precarious this situation is for the accuracy of citizens’ tax returns. As Collins reports, nearly one quarter of paper returns (22 percent) had transcription errors in 2021.
Yes, your federal tax refund could be changed by an innocently missed keystroke of a tired, overworked IRS agent tasked with doing something computers have done for decades: moving numbers from print on paper to pixels on the screen.
It Doesn’t Have to be This Way
For governments worldwide, digitization and digitalization are vital to making processes faster, more accurate, and more efficient. In fact, state tax agencies have taken matters into their own hands to rectify some of these paperwork concerns.
As Collins writes, 17 states began using 2-D barcoding technology 20 years ago. This means if you create your return using tax preparation software but opt to print it out and submit it on paper, the agency can scan the barcode and instantly transcribe all the data onto their computer system without any middle person to possibly introduce errors. According to Collins, this provides nearly 100% accuracy for agencies.
And some states have even begun adopting more advanced optical character recognition (OCR) technology that works in combination with 2-D barcoding in case a barcode can’t be read or someone submits a handwritten return.
Where We Go from Here
Fortunately, there’s a federal push to go paperless. Per the direction of E-Gov M-19-21 initiative, the U.S. government aims to stop the flow of non-digital materials into the National Archives after 2022. The Federal Agencies Digital Guide Initiative (FADGI) standards help government agencies follow imaging standards that will ascertain longevity and readability of digitized documents.
This is work close to my heart. As a VP at ibml, I’ve spent more than two decades helping clients modernize their document processing—overcoming their mounds of paper, complying with tedious regulations, and working within shrinking budgets.
That’s why we’re partners in the Office of E-Government and Information Technology (E-Gov) initiative to eliminate paper processes and, as stated, “make it easier for citizens and businesses to interact with the Federal Government, save taxpayer dollars, and streamline citizen participation.” ibml was recently part of a panel with experts that shared groundbreaking industry insights from the conference on E-Gov’s M-19-21 initiative, which lays the foundation for digital transformation in government processes.
What the Future Looks Like
Of course, as with the IRS, the status quo of overwhelmed workers, aging processes, underleveraged equipment, dissatisfied constituents, mismanaged budgets, and dusty document boxes of paper records cannot stand. That’s why companies like mine working with the E-Gov initiative are helping governments not just adopt digital solutions but embed IDP technology into everything they do so that citizens’ needs can be met with speed, precision, and exceptional service.
According to a report last year by Deloitte, governments need to move from “doing” digital to “being” digital. The goal of “being” digital is to, in their words, “use technologies such as AI, cyber, and cloud to elevate the human experience and radically transform service delivery and back-office operations…moving from ad hoc application of digital to designing and implementing digital technologies so that they are embedded across the organization and in its DNA.”
Now is the time for the IRS and the greater federal government to follow the states’ leads and make a digital-first experience a part of their DNA.
Susheel John is the VP of marketing and strategy for ibml. He has over 25 years of global experience in the intelligent information capture solution industry.