Relating Acceptance and Optimism to E-File Adoption

The United States (U.S.) government is one of the largest users of information technology (IT) systems in the world (Evans, 2006). A considerable percentage of the government’s IT investment is allocated to e-government initiatives. E-government in the U.S. provides its citizens with convenient access to government information and services. The electronic filing of income tax returns (the e-file program) is an invaluable application that aids citizens with the process of collecting their personal tax information and provides them the ability to electronically transmit their return. Electronic filing (e-file) has the potential to improve the tax filing process for the individual and the government by reducing monetary and temporal costs for both taxpayers and tax collection agencies (Fu, Farn, and Chao, 2006). The use of IRS endorsed e-file systems has continued to grow over the last couple of years with 52.9 million individual returns being filed in 2003 and approximately 68 million in 2005 (IRS, 2004). However, despite the numerous Internal Revenue Service (IRS) endorsed e-file systems that are available, this still only accounts for about 50% of the total number of returns. Congress ABSTRACT