IRS seeks to shift from manual mail processes

Imagine receiving 100 million pieces of mail each year and we're not talking flyers from the local pizza parlor. Those are real correspondents from your core constituents.

For the Internal Revenue Services, that mail comes in all shapes and sizes. It includes checks and credit card payments. Right now, each piece of mail is opened and sorted by hand.

But the IRS wants to replace that manual process with a new system that can automate opening the mail, removing contents and sorting them by type.

The IRS wants to conduct a pilot program that could be expanded to cover all the voluminous mail it receives.

Comments are due by May 13 on a request for information from the IRS. The RFI includes a lengthy list of needs the agency wants in a solution in addition to handling a large value of mail.

Among the requirements are:

• Counts and sorts envelopes
• Produces reports of receipts
• Reads barcodes and detects remittance (tax payments)
• Prints a received date and timestamp on every envelope
• Extracts and images all mail content
• Sorts, batches and numbers similar content

Any solution proposed must comply with IRS requirements on cybersecurity, hardware and software requirements.

Moving to a digitized mail process meets several goals for the IRS, namely improving services provided to the taxpayer by making the process more efficient. The IRS also wants to take advantage of the data and information it can collect to help it make better decisions.