WASHINGTON - The Internal Revenue Service this year received nearly 80 million tax returns through e-file, breaking the record set last year.

The 2007 level is up about 9 percent from the 73 million returns filed for the same period last year. Of the 139.3 million returns filed in 2007, 79.98 million or about 57.4 percent were filed electronically.

“It was another record-breaking year for e-file,” said IRS Acting Commissioner Linda E. Stiff. “Paper returns continue to drop year after year. E-file is the safe, accurate way for more and more taxpayers to quickly complete their taxes and get a refund faster.”

Since 2001, the number of e-filed returns has almost doubled and over the past decade the number of e-filers has increased four-fold.

Year	Returns	Total E-file	Percent E-file
1997	121.5 million	19.2 million	15.8%
1998	123.8 million	24.6 million	19.9%
1999	125.9 million	29.3 million	23.3%
2000	128.4 million	35.4 million	27.6%
2001	131.0 million	40.2 million	30.7%
2002	131.7 million	46.9 million	35.6%
2003	131.6 million	52.9 million	40.2%
2004	132.2 million	61.5 million	46.5%
2005	134.0 million	68.5 million	51.1%
2006	136.1 million	73.3 million	53.8%

More than 22.6 million returns have been e-filed by taxpayers doing their own returns, up from 20.3 million from the same period last year. More than 57.4 million returns were e-filed by tax professionals, up from nearly 52.9 million last year.

Direct Deposit, IRS.gov also Set Records

Meanwhile, more people this year chose to have their tax refunds directly deposited than ever before. For the year to date, the IRS has directly deposited 61.4 million refunds, up 8 percent from last year.

The IRS Web site — IRS.gov — also experienced a record year. The IRS recorded 196.2 million visits to IRS.gov this year, a more than 10 percent increase from the 177.5 million visits for the same period last year.