Corporate e-filing nearly doubles in 2013

PROVIDENCE – The number of Rhode Island companies filing corporate tax returns electronically so far this year has nearly doubled compared with the same point in 2012, R.I. Tax Administrator David M. Sullivan said Friday.

Through March 24, Sullivan noted in a release, 12,089 companies had made e-filed returns, versus 6,341 in 2012. The increase has pushed the percentage of e-filed returns as a percentage of all returns from 52.2 percent in 2012 to 71.4 percent this year, as paper returns have fallen to 4,843 from 5,812.

“We are gratified that more and more practitioners and taxpayers are taking advantage of the many benefits of e-filing,” said Sullivan in prepared remarks.

Sullivan attributed some of the increase to a decision by the Division of Taxation to enforce the state’s corporate e-file mandate, effective Jan. 1.

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In the same release, Sullivan altered business owners to a “non-compliance” scam letter from an organization calling itself Rhode Island Corporate Compliance.

The potentially misleading letter, which tells business owners that failure to satisfy “minimum annual filing requirements” in a timely manner causes businesses to be in “bad standing,” requests a $125 “Document Fee” to help businesses “avoid potential non-compliance.”

“The letter is presented and written in such a way that business owners could easily be confused and misled,” said Sullivan in a statement. “Let me be clear: Neither the R.I. Division of Taxation nor any other Rhode Island state agency sent that letter.”

The letter from Rhode Island Corporate Compliance is not an officially sanctioned form from the Tax Division and the Division of Taxation does not charge a $125 “document fee.”

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