40 Under 40 Honoree: Paul J. Mamo — 39

What will be the biggest change over the next five years in the ways tax and
accounting firms operate?
“From my perspective, the most significant change for the accounting firms
and taxpayers is the overwhelming impact electronic filing has had on their
business processes. Beginning tax year 2005, the IRS required all large business
filers to electronically file their tax return. This requirement caused a sea
of change in terms of the way taxpayers and their tax professionals prepare
and process returns. In the past, taxpayers would need to simply gather paper
documents from the various tax departments, bundle them together and mail them
to the IRS. Now with electronically filing, taxpayers and their preparers must
pull the tax data from various software applications and input into one standard
data file that can be electronically transmitted to the IRS. The benefits of
e-filing are considerable: faster acknowledgments, less errors and quicker refunds.
The feedback from the taxpayers, accounting firms and tax professionals has
been extremely positive. In fact, some firms have suggested that having the
entire set of return data in one standard format will allow taxpayers the ability
to leverage the data for other business reasons such as financial planning,
trend analysis, etc.”

What Paul’s peers had to say about him:
Paul is a young and vital leader in public technology and policy development
at the IRS. He was one of the architects of the Free File Alliance that is now
recognized by the President as being a model public-private partnership. Paul’s
success with Free File paved the way to his subsequent position at the Office
of Management and Budget where he managed the President’s Management Agenda
e-government Government to Citizen Initiatives; including govloans.gov
and GSA’s firstgov.gov.

Currently, Paul leads the project to bring the 1040 electronic filing system
into the Modernized eFile structure utilizing XML. Paul is unique in his ability
to understand the technology he manages and implements. This, combined with
his unique leadership style, allows him to bring together diverging opinions
from different groups within the private and public sectors to develop policy,
products and services that provide greater
benefit to the tax industry and the taxpayer.

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