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IRS estimates an e-filed tax return will have the refund issued within 21 days. The paper form equivalent takes 6-8 weeks. Source: http://www.irs.gov/taxtopics

IRS estimates an e-filed tax return will have the refund issued within 21 days. The paper form equivalent takes 6-8 weeks. Source: http://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc152.html http://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc152.html The other thing to know is that e-filed tax returns are subject to an immediate sanity check (i.e., has this ssn already been used?, is this a valid zip code?), which doesn't exist for paper forms.

lstamour 12y ago
In Canada, 8 business days vs. 4-6 weeks: http://www.netfile.gc.ca/fq_rfnd-eng.html http://www.netfile.gc.ca/fq_rfnd-eng.html For me, personally, it was 7 business days this year, and I did the filing in all of an hour and a half, in an afternoon. And that includes the time spent trying out two other free apps to decide which ones I liked better.
dfc 12y ago
I appreciate the reply but I think time-to-refund is a terrible metric for estimating how much human touch time is involved in processing a return. What more do we know about human paper processing time per return than before? How much would your answer change if you found out that there are only two people processing paper returns? 2^32 people? What if you found out that the types of returns that are mailed in are 10x more complicated/detailed than e-filed returns? Would it change if you knew there was an intentional processing delay on paper returns to increase e-file adoption?
- scott_s 12y ago
  I think it's a decent metric, and I'm surprised you don't agree. If we forget the "human time" part, it's a clear indicator of which method is more efficient.
  - dfc 12y ago
    Given that you want to "forget the 'human time' part" I am curious what you think the metric is for. Maybe you meant to respond to a different comment. In this thread I had asked if anyone had any numbers/estimates for processing time. I wanted these numbers because "It would be interesting to see how many minutes of human time are needed for the average paper return."
    - scott_s 12y ago
      I had assumed "minutes of human time" was a proxy-metric for efficiency.

lstamour 12y ago

In Canada, 8 business days vs. 4-6 weeks: http://www.netfile.gc.ca/fq_rfnd-eng.html http://www.netfile.gc.ca/fq_rfnd-eng.html For me, personally, it was 7 business days this year, and I did the filing in all of an hour and a half, in an afternoon. And that includes the time spent trying out two other free apps to decide which ones I liked better.

dfc 12y ago

I appreciate the reply but I think time-to-refund is a terrible metric for estimating how much human touch time is involved in processing a return. What more do we know about human paper processing time per return than before? How much would your answer change if you found out that there are only two people processing paper returns? 2^32 people? What if you found out that the types of returns that are mailed in are 10x more complicated/detailed than e-filed returns? Would it change if you knew there was an intentional processing delay on paper returns to increase e-file adoption?

scott_s 12y ago
I think it's a decent metric, and I'm surprised you don't agree. If we forget the "human time" part, it's a clear indicator of which method is more efficient.
- dfc 12y ago
  Given that you want to "forget the 'human time' part" I am curious what you think the metric is for. Maybe you meant to respond to a different comment. In this thread I had asked if anyone had any numbers/estimates for processing time. I wanted these numbers because "It would be interesting to see how many minutes of human time are needed for the average paper return."
  - scott_s 12y ago
    I had assumed "minutes of human time" was a proxy-metric for efficiency.