Tingle table

n. a U-shaped table with 18 to 25 baskets or bins, used for sorting tax returns. Subjects: English, Eponym

Etymological Note: Supposedly named after an IRS employee named James Tingle who created the table in the 1960’s. His first name is sometimes given as Edward and the place of invention is sometimes given as Fresno, California, or Cincinnatti, Ohio.

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Citations: 1973 Thomas D. Williams Hartford Courant (Connecticut) (Apr. 17) “Taxpayers Dealing With Cool Computer” p. 7: First letter openings are made by an automatic slicer, and all contents go quickly to the “tingle table,” where employes separate taxpayer checks and their forms from those due refunds. 1974 Sunday Sun (Lowell, Massachusetts) (Mar. 17) “Andover federal income tax service center busy as filing deadline nears” p. E6: Returns go to the Extracting Unit where a finer sort is made. As many as 300 clerks at “Tingle Tables” separate returns with checks from those without checks.…After being “Tingled,” returns are sent to the Examination Branch. 1986 David Thompson Omaha World-Herald (Nebraska) (Feb. 6) “Tax Trail: How Returns Wind Through IRS”: The 1040EZ form, designed for those with only the standard deduction, are taken from the Tingle table directly to an optical scanner, which picks up the information and relays it to the computer in the service center. 1990 PR Newswire (Jan. 11) “‘Don’t Mail Us Your Tax Return,’ IRS Says” (in San Diego, California): When IRS management analyst James Tingle invented the “Tingle Table,” an 18 basket sorting system, it was still merely one step in the eight step process required to process a tax return.…Once the return arrives in the mail, it is removed from its envelope and sorted by an IRS clerk into one of 18 bins at the Tingle Table.…A single Tingle Table clerk can sort 7,000 tax returns a day. 1998 Mark Schwanhausser @ San Jose, California (Knight-Ridder Tribune Business News) (Apr. 16) “Ergonomic Improvement Helps Postal Workers on Tax Day”: The engineers devised a new, improved Tingle table.…To get a feel for working at a Tingle table, imagine you are a giant at a baseball stadium in Lilliput. As you sit at home plate looking out toward center-field, about 25 trays and sorting slots encircle you—instead of field, loge, mezzanine and bleacher sections. The old Tingle tables are functional enough. But they are cramped, one-size-fits-all desks with sharp edges that elbows and knees hone in on. 1999 Department of The Treasury Internal Revenue Service Annual Report Fiscal Year 1998 (Washington, D.C.) (May 20): The Tingle Table, designed by an IRS employee in 1961, is used at Service Centers to sort paper tax returns. 2000 CNN (Mar. 29) “Due date to file U.S. taxes just around the corner” (in Ogden, Utah): Workers process the forms at something called Tingle tables, so named for Jim Tingle, an IRS employee who designed the tables back in the 1960s.

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My father, James M. Tingle, invented the “Tingle Table” while working for the IRS in Chamblee/Atlanta, Georgia, in the early 1960’s. He never worked in Fresno, Californa, but did transfer to Cincinnati, Ohio in 1976.

by Judy Tingle Stancel 21 May 07, 0653 GMT

Hello, I saw your entry for the Tingle Table and thought I could give you additional information. James Tingle was my father. He did invent the table while employed by the IRS in Atlanta, Georgia. He built the prototype in our back yard when I was a child. I helped him by sitting on the lumber as he cut it to the lengths needed to build the table. He later transfered to the Chamblee, Georgia service center where the table was first tested and installed. The first units were built by federal prison labor. The table was built upon motion principles and therefore not able to patented. What it accomplishes is to reduce the time taken by the mail opener to remove the contents of an envelope, previously opened mechanically, sort the contents, file them for action and “candle” the envelope to ensure that all the contents have be removed. The table was so sucessful that it was implemented in all IRS Service Centers nation wide, where it is still in service today. Use of the table has saved taxpayers millions of dollars by reducing the time spent to open and sort mail during tax season.

by James M. Tingle, Jr. 19 Jun 08, 0521 GMT