Online Tax Accounts
/Friend or foe, technology is here to stay. Backlogs, along with a plethora of tax notices at both the federal and state level, correct and incorrect, are supporting the need to use it. Over the past few years, the IRS has initiated an access portal to your tax records through an online account. Taxpayers can securely access and view their tax information, allowing “at-your-fingertips” tax transcripts, notices, balances, and other communication with the IRS. You may also view payments received by the IRS (even those hard-to-remember quarterly estimated tax payments), as well as make payments or create payment plans. What thrills this CPA is the online ability to grant a third-party authorization allowing your tax professional to help you with federal tax matters. Given the IRS continues to have an extremely low percentage of answered telephone calls (2%), it has become a necessity.
Locally, Indiana has expanded INTIME (Indiana Taxpayer Information Management Engine) to individual taxpayers as the Department of Revenue’s (DOR) online portal. By creating an account, a taxpayer will be able to view their refund or balance due, set up payment plans, make payments, view payment history, view correspondence, request transcripts and send messages to DOR’s customer service, among other functions. My personal favorite function is the taxpayer can grant their tax professional access to the online account. Although I am intimately familiar with the Indiana engine, I am quite confident most states have, or soon will have, something in place.
The past few years have been challenging, to say the least, with the inability to communicate with the IRS along with the massive number of unnecessary and incorrect tax notices from the state level, many stemming from incorrect information from the IRS. Online accounts may not replace all telephone communications with the tax agencies, but it will make the first steps in identifying issues much easier. If it is easier for the tax professional, it is easier on your wallet!
- Pam Smitson, CPA, CGMA, Smitson Erhart-Graves Financial Advisors
