Turn to e-Services for secure access to taxpayer information, key tools.

AuthorSchreiber, Gerard H., Jr.

Tax practitioners encountered a challenging environment this past tax season, as it came on the heels of a long government shutdown and was the first tax year greatly affected by the passage of the law known as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), P.L. 115-97--as if the general complexities of tax practice do not put enough strain on practitioners. Time-saving tools that streamline communications with the IRS can be an important element of practice management since tax practice requires regular interaction with the IRS, and that interaction often requires long wait times on the phone. For practitioners accustomed to using the Practitioner Priority Service (PPS) phone line as their first source of contact with the IRS, the purpose of this column is to describe the benefits of e-Services.

The primary motivations for the IRS to create the e-Services platform are cost savings for the Service and convenience for taxpayers and practitioners. A fundamental part of communication with the IRS is authentication of the communication. The method of communication creates different costs for the Service. The IRS estimates that it expends between 65 cents and $65 to authenticate a hard copy letter or fax sent to the Service. For a phone call, the cost is $54, and for in-person meetings the cost is $89. The e-Services platform drops the cost to 20 cents.

Events like last year's government shutdown demonstrate the disruption to tax practice when the PPS is unavailable for return preparation and collection matters. This disruption is profound during busy season, but the complexities and uncertainties created from the TCJA, the proliferation of financial products sold to taxpayers, and the amount of paper associated with these financial products sent to taxpayers put more of an onus on practitioners to exercise proper due diligence in return preparation and advising taxpayers. When all of the information authentication requests are funneled through the one channel, the PPS, that channel can become overwhelmed during normal periods and grind to a halt in extraordinary circumstances. E-Services provides an alternative method of obtaining taxpayer information that is available 24 hours a day without the annoyance of long wait times or courtesy disconnects that occur in the PPS.

As the IRS has placed new restrictions on PPS for information that will be supplied to practitioners, all practitioners subject to Treasury Circular 230, Regulations Governing Practice...

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