The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) recently added an exciting new feature. Certain notices now can be responded to by uploading documents.
Tax preparers everywhere rejoice! We are moving in the direction of not having to print, sign and certify mail a response 15 times when clients receive a notice.
The list of notices that are eligible for the electronic response is not long, but this is certainly a giant step into the 21st Century for the technology challenged Internal Revenue Service.
The list of notices includes the following:
- CP04, relating to combat zone status
- CP05A, information request related to a refund
- CP06 and CP06A, relating to the Premium Tax Credit
- CP08, relating to the Child Tax Credit
- CP09, relating to claiming the Earned Income Tax Credit
- CP75, relating to the EITC
- CP75a, relating to the EITC
- CP05A, relating to the EITC and other credits
Taxpayers who receive a notice eligible for an electronic response will have a code included with the notice that will allow them to upload electronic documents as part of their response and do not need to have an IRS online account to be able to do so.
Considering the enormous backlog of paper returns the IRS is still wading through, this is a welcome advancement for both taxpayers and tax preparers that have been frustrated with long response times. Many clients have received multiple copies of the same notice or conflicting notices while waiting for their original responses to be processed.
Eligible notices will include the language “send us your documents using the documentation upload tool”. Tax practitioners should save the above list and read notices for this language to assist you in utilizing these tools for faster responses.
The IRS is expected to continue to extend this tool to other forms in the future.
