On April 15, the IRS Commissioner declared the 1997 filing season a success, "our best ever."

* TeleFile, the program enabling 1040-EZ filers to file by phone, grew by 58 percent to 4.2 million returns telefiled by April 11. (At the beginning of tax season, the IRS announced that it had invited 23 million taxpayers to telefile.)

* Electronically filed returns grew 18 percent to 13.5 million returns. Of this amount, 323,000 taxpayers availed themselves of the online filing program, where they prepared their own returns on home computers and forwarded them to a transmitting service.

* The IRS web site had 114 million hits from January 1 to early April, double last year's amount. April 14 and 15 each saw 4 million hits.

* The IRS helped 63 million taxpayers via its taxpayer assistance programs.

* The IRS sent out 50.9 million refunds, average amount $1,314. And 14 million taxpayers chose to have their refunds directly deposited into their accounts.

Well that's the IRS's view of the 1997 filing season. What's your view? The AICPA is conducting a post-tax season wrap-up where representatives of all state CPA societies are invited to share the good, the bad, and the ugly of the 1997 filing season with executives of the IRS national office. If you have any comments you want to share, send an e-mail note to editor JimWoehlkejwoehlke@luca.com. *

Source: IR 97-24 (April 17, 1997)