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By Melanie Rigney, Revenue Collection Group

As an additional security measure, the Electronic Federal Tax Payment System (EFTPS) has changed format requirements for passwords used to access EFTPS.gov.

All users now must have Internet passwords that are eight to twelve characters long. Previously, only six characters were required. In addition, passwords must consist of both upper and lower case letters as well as either a number or a special character (including !, @, #, $, *, +, and -).

Taxpayers who use EFTPS infrequently and have not updated their passwords will be prompted to do so the next time they sign on. Once the password has been changed, a payment may be made immediately.

Taxpayers whose passwords already meet the new requirements will not have to change their passwords, although EFTPS recommends frequent password changes as a security measure.

The new password format does not affect EFTPS personal identification numbers (PINs) or Enrollment Trace Numbers. It also has no impact on those who use the EFTPS phone channel to make payments.

EFTPS, a free service from the Financial Management Service and the Internal Revenue Service, can be used to pay any Federal tax. In FY2007, EFTPS collected more than $2 trillion, or nearly 79 percent of all Federal tax dollars. Nearly 3.9 million taxpayers have used the service in the past 40 days.

To learn more about EFTPS, please visit www.eftps.gov. For more information about the new password format requirements, please visit https://www.eftps.gov/eftps/homeWhatsNew.do.

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