Good afternoon,

The Internal Revenue Service will begin accepting the transmittal of live Federal/State electronic returns on January 16^th. The Department of Revenue (DOR) will be ready to begin receiving the Oregon electronic returns at that time. The IRS will make the first acknowledgements available on the 18th; the Department will not begin issuing Oregon acknowledgements before the 20th.  Please anticipate a short delay before you see your first Oregon acknowledgements because we don't activate our automated processes until our technical staff is able to monitor the first few files received from the IRS.

We are asking that you encourage your clients to use electronic filing.  Some of the benefits of electronic filing include  automated acknowledgment of return receipt from both the IRS and DOR, faster return processing, and faster refunds.  Those choosing direct deposit can receive their refunds in as little as 4 to 10 days. Balance due filers can file early and pay later by scheduling an electronic funds transfer anytime through April 15th, 2009. If you haven't done so recently, take a look at the payment options on DOR's e-services page at:   http://www.oregon.gov/DOR/ESERV/epayments.shtml .  Balance due taxpayers can also pay by credit or debit  card when they e-file their returns.  

With the season about to begin, also please remember to keep your software products updated in case your vendor has released any updates.  Even if the update is optional, we encourage you to take it and keep you package current with the latest release.

              Thank you for your time,
             
               Mark K. Ruth
               Personal Tax and Compliance Division
               Electronic Filing Coordinator