RICHMOND, VA. -- Virginia appears guided by the principle, if it ain't broke, let's privatize it and see what happens!
The commonwealth had a free online site for people to file state taxes — a service with nearly unanimous user satisfaction. But the General Assembly and Gov. Bob McDonnell, intent on curing a nonexistent malady, abolished the Virginia iFile program last year in favor of private vendors.
Virginia replaced iFile with the misleadingly named Virginia Free File, whose website is a veritable billboard for commercial tax preparers. State residents earning more than $58,000 will have to pay to file.
Virginia iFile cost less than $50,000 a year. Switching programs could end up costing the state more money if the 90,000 filers who no longer will be able to e-file for free go back to paper returns, which the Taxation Department estimates would cost $1 each to process.
Del. Betsy Carr, D-Richmond, has submitted a bill that would reinstate iFile in January 2012.
"It seems like to me the legislation last year eliminated a service that was free to taxpayers, saved the state money and did not require taxpayers to share sensitive information with for-profit companies," Carr said. "The apparent beneficiaries of last year's legislation were private companies who want to profit by serving as middlemen between taxpayers and the commonwealth without providing any real value to citizens."
The iFile interment was approved overwhelmingly in both chambers of the General Assembly, which leads to the conclusion that legislators are far more attuned to tax software lobbyists than taxpayers.
"It makes a lot of sense — state government doesn't need to be doing everything," Del. Kathy J. Byron, R-Campbell, the sponsor of the kill-iFile bill, said last year. "We've got to get back to the core services."
Come again? Since when is tax collection, of all things, not a core service of government?
Carr said she understands that some services are best performed by the private sector. "But certainly, the collection of tax revenues is a uniquely government function."
Members of the Commissioners of the Revenue Association of Virginia are to meet with Carr today to discuss her bill.
T. Scott Harris, president of the association and commissioner of revenue in Hanover County, said he and his peers used iFile to electronically transmit processed tax returns to Richmond. He said localities received a one-year extension to continue the practice. Whatever comes out of Carr's legislation, the commissioners would like to avoid having to send reams of paper to Richmond.
"We're not John Q. Public filing a single return. We were using that mechanism to send large quantities of tax information to Richmond," he said. When last year's change was being contemplated by legislators, "we spoke to people saying, 'This is a system that works very well.' "
But who cares about working well when there's a back to be scratched or an ideology to be pushed? It's time for these politicians to return to the core government function of serving constituents instead of corporate benefactors.
mwilliams@timesdispatch.com
(804) 649-6815
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