Zenwork Launches GovPay.ai to Close the Tax Payment Gap for Enterprises, Payroll Providers and AI-First Tax Platforms

Source: IRS Data Book 2024, Table 28 (FY2024: October 1, 2023 – September 30, 2024). Figures are penalties assessed, not cash collected, and span multiple tax years. Late-filing penalties are excluded from the payment-timing subtotal.

Chart: FY2024 IRS payment-timing penalties assessed, by tax category. Source: IRS Data Book 2024, Table 28.

Three points stand out for the organizations GovPay.ai is built to serve:

• Employment taxes are the epicenter. Employment tax accounts generated $22.4 billion in payment-timing penalties, more than half of the total. Federal deposit penalties alone were $18.9 billion; about 70% of all civil penalties assessed on employment taxes. These figures highlight the importance of timely and accurate employment-tax deposits for payroll providers and employers managing obligations across multiple entities.

• Estimated payments are a recurring trap. Individuals, estates, trusts, and corporations were assessed $6.2 billion for underpaying estimated tax, an obligation that recurs every quarter and is exactly the kind of payment that is easy to miss when it lives outside the filing workflow.

• Abatement is not a strategy. The IRS abated $75.2 billion in civil penalties in the same year. Abatements and assessments come from different cohorts and cannot be netted, but the scale shows how much time taxpayers and their advisors spend contesting penalties after the fact, time a reliable payment process avoids.

The state picture is just as costly, and harder to see

There is no single national figure for state tax penalties and interest. States report on different bases, cover different taxes, and often split withholding and unemployment insurance across separate agencies. The figures that are published, though, show the cost is material:

Sources: Michigan FY2024 ACFR; Washington DOR collections Table 4; Connecticut DRS FY2025 Annual Report; Alaska Tax Division Annual Report 2024. Figures are not comparable across states and should not be summed. Other states were not verified for this release.

Interest compounds the damage. In Connecticut, interest receipts were roughly twice penalty receipts. A payment that slips by weeks can cost more in interest than in the original penalty.

Why paying is still the hardest step: 50 states, 50 portals, one deadline

Most tax software stops at the return. The payment still has to be made on a government system, and each system works differently. For a team paying taxes for one entity in one state, that is an inconvenience. For an enterprise, payroll provider or tax platform paying for hundreds or thousands of taxpayers, it becomes an operations problem:

• Separate accounts for every agency and every tax. Employers typically need a withholding account and a separate unemployment insurance account in each state, each with its own login, forms, and submission process. Some states, including California, New York and New Jersey, add separate programs for disability or paid family leave. An employer with staff in 20 states can be managing 40 or more agency accounts before counting sales tax.

• Different authentication everywhere. State portals use their own sign-in methods: email verification in one, security questions in another, state-specific multi-factor authentication in a third. Credentials, MFA devices, and password resets have to be tracked for every portal and every person who touches it.

• Enrollment that runs on mail and fax. After IRS validation, new EFTPS enrollees receive a PIN by U.S. mail in five to seven business days. This enrollment process can delay access to the payment system. In California, third-party payers enrolling in the EDD’s State Data Collector Program submit Form DE 26 by fax or mail, then wait for a letter with a temporary security code.

• Representative access is its own workflow. Payroll agents and representatives often need their own credentials plus a separate authorization step for each client account they pay on behalf of.

• Unforgiving cutoffs. EFTPS payments should be scheduled by 8 p.m. Eastern the day before the due date. California EDD applies a 15% penalty plus interest when an EFT payroll tax payment does not settle on time.

• Reconciliation by hand. Confirmation numbers, receipts and payment statuses sit in each portal. Finance teams often copy them into spreadsheets to prove what was paid, when and for whom.

Every manual login, re-keyed amount and copied confirmation number is a chance for a payment to be late, misapplied or missing. That is the gap GovPay.ai is designed to close.

What GovPay.ai processes

GovPay.ai supports federal tax payments nationwide and state tax payments across all 50 states and the District of Columbia, using the applicable tax period and jurisdiction-specific tax account information. Local tax payments are on the roadmap.

Coverage: Federal (nationwide); State (all 50 states and D.C.); Local (coming soon). Availability of specific payment types varies by jurisdiction.

Every payment moves through the same governed lifecycle: prepare, approve, submit, track and prove. Status is visible at each stage (drafted, scheduled, submitted, rejected or paid), and each payment carries its approvals and receipts for audit and reconciliation.

Key capabilities

• Federal and state tax payments: Manage supported payments using applicable tax period and jurisdiction-specific account information, without logging in to each agency portal.

• Embedded payment infrastructure: Add tax payment functionality to existing software through the GovPay API or a branded GovPay Embedded experience, without building and maintaining each agency connection.

• Repeat and recurring payments: Use saved information for eligible future payments and manage supported recurring payment activity, such as quarterly estimates and periodic withholding.

• Payment authorization and tracking: Review payment details before submission, monitor status, and keep historical records with approvals and receipts for reconciliation.

• Multi-client and multi-entity management: A portfolio view across clients, businesses, and legal entities, with flags for payments that need attention.

• Security: GovPay.ai is SOC 2 Type II compliant.

Built for organizations that pay taxes at scale

Large enterprises and multi-entity finance teams

Enterprises with legal entities and employees across many states face the same payment steps on dozens of portals every period. GovPay.ai gives treasury and tax teams one place to prepare, approve and track payments across entities and jurisdictions, with an approval trail and receipts that support internal controls and audit requests.

Payroll companies and PEOs

With federal deposit penalties alone reaching $18.9 billion in FY2024, the timing of employment-tax remittances is a core risk for anyone running payroll for others. Payroll providers can use the GovPay API to manage supported payroll tax, withholding and notice payments across federal and state agencies, track each payment’s status, and keep a per-client record of what was paid, instead of maintaining separate agency logins and representative authorizations for every client and state.

AI-first tax filing platforms

A new generation of AI-native tax platforms can prepare and file a return in minutes, then send the user to a government website to pay. GovPay Embedded lets these platforms complete the last step inside their own product, so estimated, balance-due, and extension payments happen in the same flow as the return. Structured payment statuses and records also give automated workflows clear data to act on, rather than screenshots of a portal confirmation page.

Tax software providers and accounting firms

Software providers can offer payments without building agency-by-agency integrations. Accounting firms managing hundreds of clients can use the GovPay Platform workspace to coordinate client payments, approvals and confirmations in one place.

Three ways to deploy