...and......The software companies do not send the IRS the "filed" tax returns....the IRS accesses each software company's servers and pulls files off their servers...This allows the IRS computers to control how many tax files it processes, so that their own computers & servers don't get bogged down with more files than they can handle at one time. It also allows the IRS to pull a few test files to make sure everything transfers OK before committing to massive processing efforts.
____________*Answers are correct to the best of my knowledge when posted, but should not be considered to be legal or official tax advice.*
