I'm curious, and perhaps some others here might have a little insight about this. The tax rebate checks are going out, and something occurred to me. Why isn't there an IRS website geared towards the taxpayer that's actually functional?

something like:

http://my.irs.gov/

Where if you wanted, you can take the time to put in your paystub information, and keep a running tally or get projections on your estimated tax liablity at the end of the year? I can go to a bank and get the same type of information given to me, but it seems to be a capability lost on the government.

I'd like to be able to tell in March whether or not I should amend my W-4 so that I don't end up owing money at the end of the year. I'd like to be able to login and see my past returns without having to write the IRS for an inferior copy.

I'd like to be able to see alerts come up telling me that I may qualify for new deductions as they become available.

Most importanly, I'd like to see a help system where you submit an issue and it's there for tracking who you spoke with, what their response was and allow you to escalate issues when the need arises. There are people who have a history of having to deal with the IRS and it would be nice to have a system of documenting what happens. If I go to an IRS location and speak with someone, there's absolutely no record of what was said unless I bring a tape recorder. Plus you have to go through the hassle of explaining each and every time, what happened and who you spoke with and what was said.

With all this technology, you'd think that someone might want to take a stab at creating something like this.