19% Better at Handling Returns, IRS Says

Millions of frazzled procrastinators jammed post offices Tuesday to meet the April 15 income tax filing deadline.

And IRS Commissioner Roscoe L. Egger Jr. said Tuesday that the Internal Revenue Service is not only on schedule, it is 19% ahead of last year in processing tax returns nationally and 41% ahead in the previously beleaguered Philadelphia office.

“Everything about the processing this year has gotten better. The errors are less, more returns are being handled and refunds are up,” he said.

‘Command Post’ Cited

Egger credited the “dramatic turnaround” to expanded staffing, long working hours, increased computer capacity and the creation of a 24-hour “command post” in Washington, D.C., to handle problems without delay.

Taxpayers in New York City rushed to banks open until midnight to invest in last-minute tax breaks and sipped champagne to celebrate the end of the tax year. Others dashed to join an expected 25,000 people to turn the nation’s busiest post office into “a circus, I promise you,” Postal Service spokesman Samuel Klein said.

The IRS, which already has received almost 67 million returns and paid out $33 billion in refunds, threw a bash complete with free parking and free stamps for fatigued taxpayers at the plush Peabody Hotel in Memphis, Tenn.

‘Many Happy Returns’

IRS workers in Buffalo, N.Y., soothed harried citizens with a brightly lit sign reading “Thank You, Buffalo, Many Happy Returns From the IRS” near an IRS van set up at City Hall.

One man said he delayed his tax statements to protest the use of tax dollars on military expenditures.

“I don’t like the things they use my money for--like last night’s (Libya) bombing,” said Charles Rockford, 35, a New York City real estate broker.

Another man, in Grand Rapids, Mich., said a protest was the last thing he had in mind when he dropped his tax forms into a mailbox, only to remember he had left off the stamps.

“I was rushing to get them in. Boy, do I feel dumb,” said Jack Kirkwood as he waited for postal officials to open the box to retrieve his returns.

Crackdown on Cheats Urged

As the tax year came to an end, the Democratic National Committee and the union representing IRS employees called for a crackdown on tax cheats.

Robert Tobias, president of the National Treasury Employees Union, called for a one-time amnesty that would excuse tax cheats from paying civil and criminal penalties in exchange for voluntarily paying back taxes plus interest.

The amnesty would be coupled with stiffer cheating penalties and a stepped-up effort to catch people who under-report their income or fail to file returns.

At a news conference, Tobias said that tax cheats will cost the Treasury $100 million this year and would cost $159 billion by 1990. Voluntary compliance has fallen from 90% in the 1960s to 81.6% this year, he said.

Egger Opposes Amnesty

Egger has opposed a national tax amnesty as unfair to taxpayers who file honest returns.

Meanwhile, Paul G. Kirk Jr., DNC chairman, urged adoption of a better collection effort along the lines of the “Fair Share Program” devised by North Dakota Tax Commissioner Kent Conrad.

Conrad, at a DNC news conference with Kirk, said a $1-million investment in increased enforcement in North Dakota produced a $14-million return in taxes in 1983 when he began the “Fair Share” program, which included a one-time tax amnesty.

Conrad, a Democrat, is seeking the seat held by Republican Sen. Mark Andrews.