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IR-2004-131, Oct. 25, 2004

 

WASHINGTON ¡ª The Internal Revenue Service has the nation¡¯s most reliable e-government Web site according to a leading private sector company that measures Web site performance.

Keynote Systems announced today that IRS.gov is one of the first winners of the Keynote Performance Awards, a new awards program designed to recognize excellence in Web site performance. Keynote honored the fastest and most reliable Web sites in three categories: e-commerce, e-government and online travel and hospitality.

In e-government, the IRS won the performance award for Best Transaction Reliability with an average score of 99.8 percent.

¡°The IRS is strongly committed to the use of technology to help taxpayers, and taxpayers are embracing this technology,¡± said IRS Commissioner Mark W. Everson. ¡°More than 61 million tax returns were filed electronically this year. And IRS.gov received more than 139 million visits this year, making it one of the government¡¯s busiest sites.¡±

¡°We¡¯re proud to have IRS.gov recognized as the e-government leader in reliability,¡± said Jimi Stricklin, IRS director of Web Services. ¡°This award validates our goal of improving service to America¡¯s taxpayers by delivering fast and reliable online resources and tax information.¡±

The award is based on Keynote¡¯s E-Government Web Transaction Performance Index. The index measures a visitor¡¯s ability to click through a number of pages on the Web site and successfully find the needed information. Measurements were taken between December 2003 and July 2004 every hour, seven days a week from the nation¡¯s 10 largest metropolitan areas. Three aspects of each transaction were measured: accessing the site¡¯s home page, entering a search topic and selecting or clicking on a specific search result. The site with the highest success rate, out of 100 percent, is recognized for the ¡°reliability¡± award.

Many of IRS.gov¡¯s most useful Web applications are those made possible through new capabilities developed and delivered through the IRS Business Systems Modernization Program. The program is a multi-year effort to modernize and update the nation¡¯s tax administration systems.