Michael Smith: All right, I see it is the top of the hour. For those of you just joining welcome to today's webinar, Digital Day by IRS' Online Services. We're glad you're joining us today. My name is Michael Smith, I'm a Senior Stakeholder Liaison with the Internal Revenue Service, and I'll be your moderator for today's webinar which is slated for 120 minutes. Before we begin, if there is anyone in the audience that's with the media, please send an email to the address on this slide. Be sure to include your contact information and the news publication that you're with, our Media Relations, and our Stakeholder Liaison staff will assist you and answer any questions that you may have. As a reminder, this webinar will be recorded and posted to the IRS video portal in a few weeks. This portal is located at www.irsvideos.gov. Now please note, continuing education credit or Certificates of Completion are not offered if you view any of our webinars after the live broadcast. We want everyone to know that no personal taxpayer data was used for this presentation.

And all the data shown is an example of what taxpayers and tax professionals may see. And we hope you won't experience any technology issues, but if you do, this slide shows some helpful tips and reminders. We've posted a Technical Help document that you can download from the Materials section on the left side of your screen. It provides the minimum system requirements for viewing this webinar, along with some best practices and quick solutions. Due to compatibility issues, we encourage you to use a browser other than Internet Explorer, you may experience frozen screens and other technology issues if you use Internet Explorer. If you're using anything other than Internet Explorer, and you're still having problems, try one of the following. Number one, you can close the screen where you're viewing the webinar and simply relaunch it or number two, click on settings on your browser viewing screen and select HLS. You should have received today's PowerPoint in a reminder email. But if not, no worries, you can download it by clicking on the materials drop down arrow on the left side of your screen, as shown on this slide. Closed captioning is also available for today's presentation. If you're having trouble hearing the audio through your computer speakers, please click the Closed Captioning drop down arrow located on the left side of your screen. This feature will be available throughout the webinar. If you have a topic specific question today, please submit it by clicking the Ask Question drop down arrow, you will be able to type your question in the textbox. And then simply click Send. Now very important, please do not enter any sensitive or taxpayer specific information like names or Social Security Numbers. Do not enter that information. During the presentation, we'll take a few breaks to share knowledge based questions with you. At those times, a polling style feature will pop up on your screen with a question and multiple choice answers. Select the response you believe is correct by clicking on the radio button next to your selection and then click Submit. Some people may not get the polling question. This may be because you have your popup blocker on. So please take a moment now to disable your popup blocker so you can answer the questions as they arise. We're going to take some time and test this polling feature now. So, here's your opportunity to ensure your popup blocker is not on so you can receive the polling questions throughout the presentation. So, take a look at your screen, a polling question is going to pop-up, How many times have you attended an IRS national webinar? Just to give everybody some time I'm going to read these options to you. A, this is your first time attending a national webinar; B, one through five; C, you attended six through 10 national webinars; D, 11 through 15; or E, 16 or more webinars. We're going to go a little slow just to make sure everybody receives that pop-up and has opportunity to answer. Take one last moment, click the radio button that corresponds to your answer. And I'll give you a few more seconds to make your selection and then we'll close this up. Okay, we're going to stop this polling question now. And let's see how often you attended a national webinar. Right it looks like the results are in, first time attendees that was 9% of you, 9% are attending an IRS webinar national webinar for the first time. Welcome to all those who answered. We are glad you're joining us today. And for those of you who have joined us for multiple webinars, welcome back as well. The other statistics we have then I think 24% have attended one to five webinars, 18% have attended six to 10 webinars, 12% have attended 11 to 15 webinars, and 38%, or largest group have attended 16 or more webinars, definitely thank you for participating and thank you definitely for returning. All right, we hope you received the polling question and you are able to submit your answer. If not, now's the time to check your popup blockers, make sure you have it turned off.

We've included several technical documents that describe how you can allow popup blockers based on the browser that you're using. We have documents for Chrome, Firefox, Microsoft Edge, and Safari for Mac. And you can access those by clicking on the Materials drop down arrow on the left side of your screen. Again, welcome. We're glad you joined us for today's webinar. Before we move along with our session, let me make sure that you're in the right place. Today's webinar is Digital Day by IRS' Online Service. This webinar is scheduled for approximately 120 minutes. Now let me introduce today's speakers. We are pleased to announce Sharyn Fisk, Director, Office of Professional Responsibility is one of our speakers. As OPR Director, she is responsible for the IRS' oversight of tax professionals who practice before the IRS as set out in Treasury Circular 230. Sharyn has collaborated with Online Services as they developed the Tax Pro Account for Online Services. Nadia Bazarov is the Product Manager for Tax Pro Account. Prior to joining the IRS office of Online Services in 2013, she held several senior executive positions in the private sector working for Fortune 500 and Global telecommunications and technology companies where she led product strategy and development. Nadia loves dancing, skiing, watersports, and spending time with friends and family. Adheet Gaddamanugu joined the IRS Office of Online Services in 2020 and is a Product Manager for Online Account and Multilingual Strategy. Prior to joining the IRS, Adheet worked for consulting and education firms and managed the delivery and operations of Web applications and services. Nicol Collins has been with the IRS Office of Online Services since 2015 and is currently the Lead Product Manager for Digital Product Outreach. Nicol loves to travel with the IRS to various outreach events to share the latest in IRS Digital Products with taxpayers and tax professionals. Nicol spends her time at home hiking with her German Shepherd and enjoying her family. And at this time, I'm going to turn it over to Sharyn to begin the presentation.

Sharyn? Sharyn Fisk: Thank you, Michael. And hello, everyone. Our agenda today will cover two topics. First, we'll provide you with an overview of the Tax Pro Account, which was launched in July of 2021. And then we'll give you an overview of the taxpayer's IRS Online Account. As Michael stated, no personal taxpayer data was used for this presentation. All the data shown is an example of what the taxpayers and tax professionals may see in their accounts. All right now Nadia and I are very excited to walk you through the newly launched Tax Pro Account. We know that the Centralized Authorization File, the CAF has been a challenge for taxpayers and tax professionals alike. We've had the mail and tax option for years, which is an all paper operation. In 2021, we expanded the option of using electronic signatures and to give third parties the offer, excuse me, the option to submit either a Form 2848, that's our Power of Attorney, or Form 8821, our Tax Information Authorization, as a document upload on IRS.gov. In the last summer, we took an even bigger step to expand authorization services to taxpayers and their tax professional through the launch of the Tax Pro Account. In July of 2021, the IRS added an additional feature to Taxpayers' IRS Online Account that allows taxpayers to approve or reject third-party authorization requests, those POAs and those TIAs, initiated through the Tax Pro Account and sign by checking a box. The IRS also deployed the Tax Pro Account at the same time with the initial feature of initiating either a Power of Attorney or Tax Information Authorization and this is the first online authorization process that's benefiting taxpayers and tax professionals. The Tax Pro Account as you're going to see allows tax professionals to initiate POAs, Power of Attorney and TIAs and sign if needed by just checking the box. This all digital platform is secured by a rigorous identity proofing process, if the requests are submitted accurately, they post immediately to the CAF, avoiding those long waits for review and processing for Forms 2848 and 8821, improving services for taxpayers. The IRS is going to continue to build on this initial release of the Tax Pro Account to improve its features for authorization requests, and in later years to add additional functionality as our resources allow. We know that some users experience difficulty getting through Secure Access registration process. And we're happy to say that updates were made in November of 2021 to increase the success rate for identity verification. A new IRS sign in process uses a trusted technology provider named ID.me to verify identities, ID.me provides many different methods for taxpayers and tax professionals to verify their identities. And this means more taxpayers and more tax professionals will be able to access our online services. Other federal agencies and states also use ID.me including the Social Security Administration and Veterans Affairs. So, a user who verifies their identity once with ID.me can use that same digital identity to access services from multiple participating federal and state agencies. All right, we'll get into the good stuff. The landing page for the Tax Pro Account is located on IRS.gov, the Tax Pro page. On the Serve Your Clients page is a chart to help users decide whether using the Tax Pro Account to initiate a POA, a Power of Attorney, or TIA, Tax Information Authorization, or whether using a Form 2848 or 8821 submission is appropriate. And that's depending on the taxpayer situation. I want to point out, as you can see from the webpage, the Tax Pro Account is not an e-service rather, it's an additional online tool for tax professionals. The Tax Pro Account homepage provides information regarding the Tax Pro Account to include: How it Works, Who Can Use This Service, and important things to know before you start. And it has a great list of Help Topics to assist you in understanding and using this platform. Before we get into the fun stuff of requesting authorizations, let's have our first polling question. Michael Smith: Sounds good to me, Sharyn. All right, audience I hope you're ready. Here's our first polling question. To register for a Tax Pro Account, you will need the following, A, an email address; B, a Social Security Number or an International Taxpayer Identification Number, ITIN; C, device with a camera; or D, all of the above. Take a moment and click the radio button that best answers the question. I'll give you a few more seconds to make your selection. Okay, we're going to stop the polling now. And let's share the correct answer on the next slide. All right, and the correct answer was D. And it looks like okay, I can now see 89% of you responded, correct. Excellent work, everyone. Sharyn, it looks like back to you to walk us through signing on to the Tax Pro Account. Sharyn Fisk: Sounds right, Michael. All right. So, you can sign into the Tax Pro Account with either an existing IRS username, or by creating a new account with our new trusted technology provider, ID.me. Once the tax professional is signed into their Tax Pro Account, they arrive on their individual Tax Pro Account homepage. Note, you're the only individual Tax Pro Account or sorry, only individual tax professionals can have a Tax Pro Account. That is, it can't be a firm Tax Pro Account. And you shouldn't be sharing your Tax Pro Account with anyone. Right from here, the tax professionals can navigate to view their Tax Pro Account authorization requests, they can view their profile preferences where they can opt into email notifications, we're going to be chatting about that in a moment. Use a single sign-on link to access the Transcript Delivery System that TDS, one of our favorite systems, or select to either Request the POA or Request the TIA authorization. Before we walk thru requesting an authorization, I want to touch on that profile preferences page. So, on your Profile page, you can see your login information and links to those settings that can be updated if you want, you can also edit your email notification preferences.

Now, by default, all users are opted out of receiving Email Notifications. If you want to opt in to receiving emails about your Tax Pro Account, you can make that change here by clicking on that Edit link. Now, at this time, the only email notification being issued are notifications when a taxpayer has approved your authorization. However, the IRS hopes to expand the types of notifications as additional functions are added to the Tax Pro Account. Right, so after you've clicked Edit, you can check the box to Opt-in to receive Approved Authorization Request notifications. And of course, if you change your mind at this point, click the Cancel link. But if you're going to proceed, after you've checked that, after you click the checkbox, you will be prompted to enter an email address where you want those email notifications to be sent. You'll need to enter the email address twice because we want to verify the address is entered again accurately and it's an acceptable email format. And then click on the Save button. After you've correctly entered your email address, both times and in the required email address format, now you're going to receive a notification that your email notification preferences have successfully saved, have been successfully saved. Of course, you can always go back in and edit those email notification preferences again. All right, so we're out of our profile page. Now we're going to start the demo on requesting an authorization and for today we're going to illustrate the steps taken by a tax professional seeking to request a Power of Attorney authorization. Before I go further, I just want to emphasize a tax professional is not creating a Form 2848 or an 8821 through the Tax Pro Account. Rather, these are online Powers of Attorney and online Tax Information Authorization. And this online POA and TIA don't have that same full functionality of the Form 2848 or 8821. And I'm going to explain as we go through the POA process, or online POA request process, the differences between the forms and online. Right, so after choosing to request an authorization button, there is a Before You Start page that provides detailed, user friendly instructions to help tax professional with initiating authorization request. For example, at this time only certain tax professionals, those with designation codes A, B, C, G, and R. And those are Attorneys, CPAs, Enrolled Agents, Enrolled Actuaries and Enrolled Retirement Plan Agents can initiate a Power of Attorney in the Tax Pro Account. Also, these tax professionals must be in good standing, meaning they can't have been suspended or disbarred from practice before the IRS.

Anyone with a valid CAF number can initiate a Tax Information Authorization from the Tax Pro account. To create an online authorization, a person must already have a Centralized Authorization File a CAF, right. They must already have a CAF number assigned to them by the IRS, you can't use the Tax Pro Account to request a tax number. Now an authorization that's going to have multiple representatives can be created through the Tax Pro Account and it is done by each representative creating an authorization request to their individual Tax Pro Account, and the taxpayer signing all the requests on the same day. And I'm going to give more detailed instructions on this a little later on in the presentation. If a tax pro account cannot be used for requests an authorization, the regular Form 2848 or 8821 process is still available to everyone. And that includes using the Submit Form 2848 and 8821 Online platform where electronic signatures will be accepted on the form or faxing the form to the PPS to the priority or Practitioner Priority Service line for immediate assistance and faxing and mailing the form to the CAF. This is just the second half of the Before You Start Page providing detailed steps, so a tax professional will know what's expected through the whole authorization request process. All right, let's start entering a POA. We start Step 1 with a tax professional entering their information, their name, their CAF number and their address. Now the Tax Pro Account interfaces real-time with the CAF database to validate all of these entries, because of these validations, you have to use the exact information the IRS has on record, your name, your CAF number, and your address. If the tax professional's information doesn't match up with the information on record with on CAF, an error message is going to pop up when you try to proceed to the next step. And this information is character sensitive, but not space sensitive, sorry, it's not character sensitive, but its space sensitive. So, make sure you got all your spacings down and got your characters correct. Notice at the top of the page there are guides so the user knows where they are in the process, and there are links to reference information. For example, on this page, there's a link to a list of common address abbreviations used by the IRS. There are also Help Tips, it's those little blue question marks, within the system to assist tax professionals. To access the Help Tips, just hovering your cursor over the enabled item that little blue question mark. As you can see on this slide, this Help Tip is explaining how a tax professional can locate their CAF number or get it from the PPS line. As mentioned earlier, the tax professional must have a CAF number to create an authorization on the Tax Pro Account. At this time, addresses and licensing designations are limited to 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia, so that's going to exclude our U.S. territories, international practitioners/tax professionals. To check what the IRS has on record for your name and address look at any automated IRS correspondence that has been sent to you. And if your address has changed, you cannot update your address on the Tax Pro Account. That again, remember it's an automated validation system. So, it has to validate what the IRS has on its record, so you'll have to update your information through the paper filing. After completing Step 1 information, the tax professional is going to click that next button to move on to Step 2. But before getting to Step 2, the IRS will validate the entries with the information recorded on the CAF, now they'll check to see what your name, address and CAF number is. And then we'll also check to see if the tax professional is in good standing. And I want to point out the buttons at the bottom of the screen you can see on the slide, at this point a tax professional has the option of proceeding with creating this authorization request, or deciding to abandon the request by clicking on the delete button. If the tax professional clicks on the Delete button, a confirmation box is going to pop up to confirm the delete request before the permanent deletion occurs. We just want to make sure you really intended to delete your work thus far. All right, before we get to Step 2, Michael how about another polling question. Michael Smith: Certainly, Sharyn. Audience after all that great information, we want you to provide us with some feedback in the form of our second polling question. Please read this one carefully. Who cannot request a Power of Attorney through the Tax Pro Account? Who cannot request a Power of Attorney through the Tax Pro Account? Your options are A, unenrolled tax return preparer; B, Attorney; C, Certified Public Accountant; or D, Enrolled Agent. Which one of those cannot request a Power of Attorney through the Tax Pro Account? Take a moment, click on the radio button that best describes or best answers the question. I'll just give you a few more seconds of silence to make your selection. Okay, we're going to stop the polling now. And let's share the correct answer on the next slide. And as you can see on your slide, the correct response is A, unenrolled return preparer. And I have the data it looks like 98% of you responded correctly. That is absolutely fantastic. Wonderful job, everyone. Thanks for participating. Well, Sharyn looks like I am turning it back over to you. Sharyn Fisk: Thank you, Michael. All right, we have moved on to Step 2. The tax professional will enter the taxpayer's information including the taxpayer's name, address, and tax identification number. And at this time, the Tax Pro Account is only supporting individual taxpayers. Tax Pro Account doesn't support businesses those BMF, international filers, or individuals residing outside of the 50 United States. So, that is, individuals residing in U.S. territories are excluded at this time. To cover a large population of taxpayers in the initial launch of the Tax Pro Account, we started with individual taxpayers, which covers approximately 85% of the authorizations that are submitted to the IRS. Like with the tax professionals' addresses, the taxpayer addresses are limited to the 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. However, it does include APO, FPO, and AFB military addresses. The taxpayer's address must exactly match what the IRS has on record in order to pass validation. Now the Tax Pro Account cannot be used to update a taxpayer's address. If the taxpayer has recently moved, you'll need to use one of the paper forms, Form 2848 or the Form 8821, to get your authorization. To assist in getting the taxpayer's address correct, look at those help tips links on Address Abbreviations or have the taxpayers confirm their address on record with the IRS by looking at their Online Account, their official address on record is in their Online Account or looking at any IRS written communication that was set to the taxpayer. Starting with Step 2, you have the option of saving a request. So, say for example, you started a POA request, a Power of Attorney request, but need to verify information with the taxpayer on the tax periods that are involved. You can click the save button, and a confirmation box will appear to confirm that you want to save what you've entered up to this point. The tax professional can then access the draft POA request from their Authorizations tab on their Tax Pro Account to resume the authorization request or, if need be, to delete the authorization request. You will get confirmation that your draft has been saved and you can either proceed with the request or leave and come back again at a later time. We have moved on to Step 3. Step 3 allows for the selection of the tax matters and the tax periods. At this time, tax matters are limited to 1040. Form 8857, which is our Innocent Spouse Relief, or Split Spousal Assessment, their Shared Responsibility Payments and Shared Responsibility Payments with Split Spousal Assessment and Civil Penalties. So, if we compare that to the Form 2848, there is no specific-use not recorded in CAF, that's our line four of the Form 2848. There's no Additional Acts, that's our lines 5A and 5B on our Form 2848. And remember, this is an automated process. So, there's no allowance for written-in information. And there is no retention of a prior POA. That's line 6 of a Form 2848. As you can see, these are simple POAs created through the Tax Pro Accounts leaving the more complex POAs to be submitted on Form 2848, which are manually reviewed in the CAF. These simple POAs are going to reduce the workload of the CAF unit, which will assist in speeding up the processing time on those more complex authorizations. Like the Form 2848 and 8821, tax professionals can select a combination of tax matters and tax periods. So, as you can see here, once you check a Tax Matter, options will appear to enter the tax period or combination of tax periods for that tax matter. Not all tax periods are covered in the Tax Pro Account online process, you do, those years are limited to the last 20 years plus three years from the present year. So, for example, we can now go up to 2025. At this time, fiscal years cannot be processed. Again, like the Form 2848, 8821, a tax professional can select whether they'd like to receive notices of communications, or copies of notices and communications, the IRS sends to the taxpayer regarding that tax matters and those tax years, it's in the document. So just like with a Form 2848, only a maximum of two tax professionals can receive copies of notices and communications for the same tax matter and tax periods. And this is important, and I'll explain it a little later on. It has to do with having multiple representatives. So, remember, only two, if there will be more than two tax professionals on an authorization, then the tax professionals need to communicate with each other regarding, which two will be receiving the notices and communications from the IRS regarding the taxpayer. And again, I'm going to give you more details about this, about how to have multiple representatives a little later on in the presentation. All right. So once all our entries are completed, the tax professional is going to proceed the Step 4. But before we go there, we're going to have another polling question. Michael Smith: Thanks a lot, Sharyn. All right, audience. Here's our third Polling Question. And take a minute to read through this one. There is a lot of language here. On a single Power of Attorney, what is the maximum number of representatives who can be designated to receive copies of IRS notices and communication sent to a taxpayer? A, one; B, two; C, three; or D, unlimited. And I'm going to read that one again, just to make sure everyone has enough time for that pop-up to come up. On a single Power of Attorney, what is the maximum number of representatives who can be designated to receive copies of IRS notices and communications sent to a taxpayer? Your options are A, one; B, two; C, three; or D, and unlimited amount. Take a moment, click the radio button that best answers the questions. And I'll give you a few more seconds in silence to make your selections. All right. We're going to stop polling now. And let's share the correct answer on the next slide. And the correct answer was B, two. Hopefully, everybody got that. Let's check to see what the results show. Now, I see that 66% responded to that correctly.

So, Sharyn, do you want to take a minute and clarify that answer? Sharyn Fisk: Sure. Thanks. Hi.

So only two tax professionals can elect to receive copies of IRS notices and communications sent to the taxpayer. It's the same on a Form 2848 and 8821. It's the same on creating an online POA and an online TIA using the Tax Pro Account. And again, because this is an automated processing system, the system for these online POAs and TIAs cannot tell which two tax professionals should receive the notices and communication. So, all the authorizations are going to be unprocessable, they'll get rejected. So, you really do have to communicate with your colleagues on which two are going to select receiving notices and communications from the IRS. So, Michael, I hope that clarifies it. Michael Smith: I think it does that. That's a good explanation. And yes. All right.

And it looks like I am handing it right back to you to continue then. Sharyn Fisk: Fantastic. All right, we are on Step 4, we're almost to the end of creating our POA. And this Step 4 gives the tax professional the opportunity to review the authorization before it's going to be submitted. Now the tax professional should look at all the entries, make sure they're accurate. Select edit if they have to go back and make any necessary changes. If the information entered is correct, as with a Form 2848, now a representative is going to make declarations under the penalty of perjury regarding their good standing, that they are subject to circular 230 and that they are authorized to represent the taxpayer for the tax matters and the tax period on the authorization. And this is done by checking each of those boxes for each declaration. The representative indicates their designations right, their credentials is A, B, C, G, or R. And where necessary, enter the state that they're licensed in and their license have their certification number. To sign this POA, the representative checks the electronic signature box. This checkbox will be accepted from the authenticated tax professional in lieu of a written and a handwritten signature. Step 5, is easiest step, confirmation. This is confirmation of the request submission. This is not confirmation that you have an authorization yet because remember, we still have to get the taxpayer to approve this authorization. And this is just the second half of the submission confirmation.

So, once we've hit that Submit button upon submission of the authorization to the IRS, there'll be an automated validation. They're going to, that's going to be checked again, if the representative is in good standing and the taxpayer's name address and tax identification number will be checked to see if it's valid. Now it's important here. The tax professional will not be told if the taxpayer information is incorrect, basically that failed validation. And there's a reason for that, a good reason Internal Revenue Code Section 6103. As this authorization is not complete, the IRS cannot share private taxpayer information like the taxpayer's correct address, correct TIN and correct name. Because we haven't got a correct, we haven't got a completed authorization yet. If the authorization fails, the taxpayer is not going to receive the request for authorization in their online account. So, the tax professional needs to be communicating with the taxpayer regarding whether the taxpayer received the request for authorization. And if the taxpayer did not receive the authorization request, to affirm the entered information, to make sure it's correct.

If for some reason this system or the request is not successfully submitted to the IRS due to a system error, the tax professional will get notification so they know they can try at a later time to resubmit the request. Now once a tax professional successfully submits the POA or TIA request, that online Power of Attorney or online Tax Information Authorization and if the taxpayer has opted into receiving email notifications, the taxpayer and they've done this on their online account, the taxpayer will receive an email that looks like this, directing them to check their Online Account for a notification. Right now, we're going to move over to the taxpayers Online Account to go over what the taxpayer needs to do regarding the authorization. And I'm going to hand it over to Nadia to walk us through this part. Nadia Bazarov: Thank you, Sharyn. The taxpayer must log into their Online Account and look under their Authorizations tab to see the list of online requests from their tax professional. They may also notice the notification to Review Your Authorization Request, which will also direct them to go to that Authorizations tab. When they get there, the taxpayer will review authorization statuses and select the authorization that needs their action. It will have the words approve or reject next to it. Taxpayer will review that authorization information and confirms that it covers the tax matters and tax periods intended.

The taxpayer can also see their representative's credentials, Attorney, CPA, Enrolled Agent and so on. Taxpayer should review tax matters and tax periods requested, as well as the confirmation that tax professional will receive IRS notices and communication to the taxpayer. The taxpayer has 120 days to take action on their authorization request. Even if the taxpayer does not have an Online Account at the time that authorization is created by the tax professional, the authorization will wait so to speak for 120 days for the taxpayer to register for an Online Account and access the requested authorization. The taxpayer has choice to reject or approve that authorization request.

If the taxpayer clicks on reject request, they will be asked to confirm the rejection. This minimizes that occurrence of an accidental rejections. Taxpayers will also receive a confirmation when an authorization request is rejected. If the taxpayer wants to accept the request, they will check the boxes affirming their desire to have the individual represent them and that the information in the authorization request is true, correct and complete. They will then click this Approve Request button. Taxpayers will get the following confirmation screen notifying them that the authorization is being processed, is in pending status. After taxpayer signs and approves authorization, there is a second good standing check regarding the tax professional. Just in case between the time the tax professional requested the authorization and when the taxpayer approved it the tax professional fell out of good standing. If the authorization clears the validation, it is typically posted immediately to the CAF database. The taxpayer will receive a Success message when the IRS approves the authorization and the authorization is now considered active. Sharyn, you mentioned that creating online POAs of multiple representatives is possible. Would you like to go over the details now? Sharyn Fisk: Sure, absolutely. The Tax Pro Account allows for the ability to have multiple representatives on an authorization just like we have on a paper Form 2848. And this also works for that Tax Information Authorization, the Form 8821. To create a Power of Attorney and online POAs through Tax Pro account with multiple representatives, each tax professional initiates the authorization from their own Tax Pro Account for the taxpayer covering the same tax matter and the same tax period. So, they do have to match all the other tax professionals indicating of the same tax matter on the same tax period. Also as I mentioned before, only two of the tax professionals can elect to receive copies of IRS notices and communications sent to the taxpayer, if more than two tax professionals make an election, the POA is not going to be processed. The taxpayer must then sign all authorizations on the same day. And when I'm talking about same day, we're going with East Coast hours. All right, back to you, Nadia.

Nadia Bazarov: Thank you. Let's continue. If the request has failed, the taxpayer will receive a message regarding the failure and should let the tax professional know about this. An authorization may fail if, let me just give you few examples. If the tax professional is no longer in good standing, the taxpayer signed authorizations on the same day that have the same tax matter but overlapping tax periods. For example, one POA for same tax matter has tax periods from 2017 through 2021. And the other POA for the same tax matter has tax periods of 2020 through 2023. It will also fail if more than two representatives or designees for the same tax matter and period requested that notices and communications be sent to them. Tax professional will not receive a failure message due to that IRC 6103 requirements. Since authorization is not yet active, the tax professional is not authorized to receive private taxpayer information. Michael, do we have another polling question? Michael Smith: Yes, we do. Nadia. All right. Audience here is our fourth poll question coming up. An authorization with multiple representatives can be created through the Tax Pro Account, if which of the following apply, A, each tax professional initiates authorization from their own Tax Pro Account; B, only two tax professionals elect to receive copies of IRS notices and communications to the taxpayer; C, the taxpayer signed all the POAs on the same day; or D, all of the above actions are taken. And again, I'm going to read that again, just to make sure that all of our participants have an opportunity for that poll question to load and everyone gets an opportunity to answer. Poll question number four, An authorization with multiple representatives can be created through the Tax Pro Account, if A, each tax professional initiates authorization from their own Tax Pro Account; B, only two tax professionals elect to receive copies of IRS notices and communication to the taxpayer; C, the taxpayer signs all the POAs on the same day; or D, all of those above actions are taken. So, take a minute, click the radio button to best completes the statement. And I'll give you a few more seconds to make your selection. Okay, hopefully you had a chance to answer, I'm going to stop the poll now and let's share the correct answer on the next slide. Right, and as you can see, the correct answer was D. And the numbers are in I see that 84% answered that one correctly. So excellent job audience 84%. All right, Nadia. Looks like I'm turning it back over to you. Nadia Bazarov: Thank you, Michael. Like the tax professional, the taxpayer is able to print a physical copy of fully executed POA or TIA as needed. Here's an example of an approved authorization, which shows the electronic signatures of both the taxpayer and the tax professional. After the taxpayer approves POA or TIA, if they receive Confirmation screen, seen earlier in this demo, the tax professional who has opted in to receive email notifications would receive this email directing them to Tax Pro Account to view recently approved authorizations. Sharyn, would you like to take us back to the Tax Pro Account side to show what the user will see? Sharyn Fisk: Yes, all right. So, the tax professionals will have the ability to view authorization statuses, right that's pending, approved or draft of it. Now, this list will not reflect that an authorization has been revoked by a subsequent authorization. And then that's going to go back to our IRC, Internal Revenue Code, Section 6103. The IRS cannot show the status because it is private taxpayer information, their authorization isn't valid anymore, it's been revoked. They can also have the ability to view and Cancel Pending authorizations, which is something you can't do with the unsigned Form 2848 and 8821 you've mailed to your client and the tax professional also have the ability to print a copy of the authorization. As you can see, there is a handy print button if you want to have a paper copy of the authorization to keep for your records. This is an example of a pending POA authorization, the taxpayer must log into their Online Account to approve and electronically sign the authorization request. So, this is what we're going to see until that happens. The tax professional has the option to cancel this request before the taxpayer has approved it, if the tax professional wishes to do so. And this is an example of an approved authorization and see it shows the electronic signatures of both the taxpayer and the tax professionals. Now, if you wanted to withdraw an online authorization, withdrawing an online authorization created through the Tax Pro Account is the same as withdrawing an authorization created through a Form 2848 or 8821. And that is the tax professional writes withdraw at the top of the authorization so print out, right withdraw the top of the authorization, sign date and submit that signed copy to the address or fax number that is used in either one you have. About the POA look at the instructions in the Form 2848, if you have online TIA, then you want to look at the instructions for the Form 8821. All right, back to you, Nadia. Nadia Bazarov: Thank you. We are almost at the end of Tax Pro Account presentation. In conclusion, we just wanted to let you know that IRS is committed to expanding Tax Pro Account capabilities to improve its feature for authorization requests and to add additional functionality as resources will allow. Here are just some of the examples of the features that we have recently launched, working on, actively claiming or considering for the future. You've seen in this presentation notification to the taxpayer regarding action in their Online Account to include pending authorization requests that were launched. We have also recently launched email alerts letting the tax professionals know when taxpayer approves their authorization requests. We are planning in the future to give tax professional's ability to view and manage all of their active authorizations, not just only the online POAs, TIAs submitted through Tax Pro Account but also authorizations using Submit Form 2848 and 8821 Online, all of their active authorizations on CAF. They are planning to give taxpayer's ability in the future to view their complete authorization history. Now, we are done with the Tax Pro Account side and I will turn this over to your Adheet to start the Online Account section of today's webinar, Adheet. Adheet Gaddamanugu: Thanks Nadia. Let's start off by defining Online Account. Online Account is a self-service tool for individual taxpayers to securely access their account information. Today we'll walk you through how to get to online account and each of the current features. This is the IRS.gov homepage. You can navigate to the Online Account landing page by clicking on the Sign into Your Account button or simply by entering IRS.gov/account into your browser. This is the landing page for Online Account on irs.gov. This page is periodically updated when we launch new features and includes an overview of functionality that's currently available. From here, clicking on the Sign into Your Online Account button will allow you to log in with your username and password or to register by verifying your identity. Once in Online Account, this is an example of what a taxpayer may see.

This example taxpayer, Chad has an account balance and is signed up for a payment plan, also called an installment agreement. On this homepage, Chad can see a balance due of $330 on the left.

When a payment is due, Chad can click on the Make a Payment button in the Payments box. This box also displays relevant and useful links such as View payment options, and View payment activity.

If Chad wants to find more information regarding his balance, he can go to the Account Balance tab or click on View Balance Details. Next, Chad will also be shown account notifications via the Notifications box on the top right side of the Account homepage. The Notifications box is a recently launched feature back in February 2021 and provides taxpayers with timely and relevant account notifications specific to their personal online account. The development of this feature stemmed from direct feedback from taxpayers, and an analysis of online account usage data. We found that taxpayers wanted to be notified of important account information when they're in Online Account. Data on application usage also shows that informing taxpayers of relevant account information pertaining to their online account further drives feature usage. As we can see, Chad is shown two notifications in the Notifications box. The first one is to turn on email notifications and the second one is to go paperless for certain IRS notices. Chad can click on any of the links in the Notifications box to navigate directly to the corresponding area of online account to take the action. And upon acting on the notification, the notification will be dismissed. We plan to continually expand on the Notifications functionality as we continue to listen to taxpayer feedback and also review feature usage. Next, Chad has visibility into the payment plan that's currently set up, directly on the account homepage. This box displays details of the installment agreement like the date the payment is due, type of payment plan and the payment amount. Last but not least, the homepage also displays helpful links for the taxpayer to view their tax records, available notices and any authorizations from a tax professional.

Taxpayers can navigate to other pages by the links on this page, or the tabs across the top.

Please note that some of these screens may have been updated since the screenshots have been taken. Next, let's take a look at the Notices of the Letters tab. Notices and Letters was launched in November 2020 and provides taxpayers with a view of select IRS notices that are also available online. Here, taxpayers are presented with a notice list on the left. Selecting a notice in the notice list displays the notice detail, which contains important information such as the name of the notice, a plain language description, and the notice date. Taxpayers can view a PDF copy of the notice by clicking on the View PDF, View Notice PDF button. We currently support the display of 17 notice types in the Notices and Letters tab. The current list of notices are CP01A, CP05A, CP14, CP14H, CP14I, CP21A, CP32, CP39, CP49, CP60, CP62, CP501, CP508C, CP521, CP563C, CP621, and CP701S. Taxpayers can also access notice help directly from this page. Taxpayers have access to view FAQs for that specific notice using the FAQ link. Next, taxpayers have the option to go paperless or sign up for email notifications when new notices become available to view online. We'll take a look at this functionality when we view the profile page. As with all of our online account features, we continue to iterate and improve them based upon taxpayer feedback and data. Next, let's talk a look at the profile page. You can access profile by navigating to the top right of the screen next to your name. There also help and Logout links, right beside. Recently deployed, this new profile page displays basic taxpayer information including full name, mailing address, email address, and instructions on how to change other profile information. The goal of this page is to provide taxpayers with additional options in the future as we continue to add and refine features to online account This new design provides a great platform to build upon as new features, new options are added. Taxpayers are also shown the mailing address we have on file.

Currently taxpayers must submit Form 8822 if they'd like to make changes. Later this year, taxpayers will be able to update their domestic address directly within the profile page without the need to submit a Form 8822. Next, let's take a look at some more features of Profile. Newly released profile is the ability for the taxpayer to go paperless for select notices available within the Notices and Letters tab as well as to sign up for email notifications when new notices become available to view or if there's an authorization request from a tax professional. Let's take a look at how taxpayers can sign up for email notifications. Taxpayers can currently select to receive an email notification when either a new notice becomes available to view or when there's a pending request from a tax professional. Taxpayers can update those preferences by selecting Edit, and then the appropriate checkbox, and then by clicking Save. They'll soon be able to receive additional email notifications as we continue to add more email notification types.

Let's now take a look at how a taxpayer can go paperless. Taxpayers can go paperless for notices that are currently available in the Notices and Letters tab. Going paperless is easy. Taxpayers can go paperless by clicking Edit, then Online. Clicking on Save will save those preferences and display the confirmation message. Going paperless will only apply to the digital notices available in the notices and letters tab. We are continuing to iterate and make improvements to the paperless option. Now before I turn it over to Nicol to walk us through a taxpayer making a payment. Let's pause for a polling question. Michael? Michael Smith: Absolutely. Thanks, Adheet.

All right audience. Let's get ready for Polling Question #5. And hopefully it's appearing on your screen and popping up so you can see it. Polling question is, Which notifications appear in the Notifications box? Is it A, turn on email notifications; B, review authorization request; C, Go paperless or select IRS notices; or D, all of the above. And again, just to ensuring that everybody's system has time to load that polling question. I will read it again. And we'll give you a little extra time. The question is, Which notifications appear in the Notifications box?

Your options are A, turn on email notifications; B, review authorization request; C, Go paperless for select IRS notices; or is it D, all of the above. Take a moment, select the radio button that best completes that statement. There could be a few more seconds of silence. Make your selections now. Okay, we're going to stop the polling out. And let's take a look at what the correct answer is on the next slide. And hopefully as you can see, the correct response is D, All of the above, all of those notifications appear in the notifications box. All right, and let's see what the audience shows. Okay, only 64% were able to answer that correctly. So, Adheet did you want to clarify or add any comments to that question? Adheet Gaddamanugu: Yes, Michael. Thank you. So, currently in online account, we do support all three notification types. So, it is available when a user needs to turn on email notifications, or to go paperless for select IRS notices that are currently available digitally, or to review an authorization request from a tax professional. So, all three notification types are currently supported in Online Account. And they would see these notifications on the homepage. And we are continuing to iterate to add further notifications in future. Thank you and over to Nicol to continue the remainder of the online account. Nicol Collins: Thank you, Adheet. Thank you, Michael. So now that you have had a tour of Online Account from Adheet. And as Adheet mentioned, if this taxpayer wants to understand more details about her account balance, she can go to the account balance tab, where it shows a breakdown by tax year.

By expanding this tax year row on the right side of the page, towards the bottom, you can see the breakdown for 2017, which shows the penalty and interest she has accrued. This can also include other types of balances she might owe such as a Form 5329 balance, or civil penalties, those would also appear here. Now Ms. Stacy has understood her balance, she is ready to make a payment. To make a payment button is on the left. So, Stacy is now in the make a payment flow where she can choose how to pay. She can pay by bank account, or she can choose to pay by card, which will route her to an external website. Stacy has chosen to pay by bank account. Next, she will select the type of payment, and as you can see, there are multiple types of payments, she can make such as her 2021 income tax payment, even if her return has not been processed yet, or she can pay her balance in full, or make a minimum payment if she is an installment agreement, there are other types of payments listed here as well, such as estimated tax payments. She can choose to make a same day payment and stay within Online Account or if she chooses a future date, she will be routed to IRS direct pay. Now Stacy will choose her account type, she'll choose either checking or savings. She will enter her bank routing number, and then confirm it and her account number and also confirm that. After she confirms her email confirmation, she will click next. Here the taxpayer is now in Step 3 of this flow, and Stacy needs to review and submit her payment. If she selects yes to receive an email confirmation, she will need to check the box that she agrees to the email confirmation terms of service. She will also need to check the box for consent and authorization of payment after she views the terms of service. Stacy is now ready to commit her payments. Here, Stacy received an immediate confirmation of her payment. She will also receive an email confirmation if she requested it. On this page, the taxpayer can view any pending or scheduled electronic payment. The payment Stacy just made would show up here immediately as a pending payment. Schedule payments will appear here approximately four days before processing.

Taxpayers can see five years of payment history on this page as well. Let's pause for a polling question. Michael? Michael Smith: Sure, Nicol. Thanks for that wonderful information. Audience we are into Polling Question #6. This is our final Polling Question. Take a minute to view screen.

Taxpayers have the option to make which type of same date payments? Is it A, payments towards their balance or plan; B, amended return payments; C, proposed tax assessment; or D, all of the above. And just to make sure everyone's polling question has loaded. I'll read that question again. The question is taxpayers have the option to make which type of same day payment? Is it A, payments towards their balance or plan; B, amended return payments; C, proposed tax assessment; or D, all of the above. So, take a moment, click the radio button that best completes that statement.

I'll give you a few more seconds to make your decision. Okay, we're going to stop the polling now.

Here is the correct answer on the next slide. And as you can see, the correct answer is D, all of the above. And I see 91% of you responded correctly. So wonderful job again, everyone. And Nicol, I think it is back to you, as you're going to walk us through how a taxpayer can make a payment or create a payment plan, it is all yours. Nicol Collins: Thank you, Michael. And I'm happy everyone was paying attention. Here we have a taxpayer who has a balance and would like to see what payment options are available to them. And this case, they are in jeopardy of a lien or a levy. The taxpayer can toggle to the third tab at the top payment options. Any taxpayer who has a balance can view their available payment options. On the Payment Options tab, we display personalized payment plan options to taxpayers who are eligible and encourage taxpayers to set up a plan online.

In this case, they have three choices. They can make a payment through online account, apply for a short-term payment plan or apply for long-term payment plan. Before they decide, they can see if there's a setup fee, and how much the payment amount would be for a specific number of days for a short term plan. For a long-term plan, they would need to apply first to see the estimated monthly payment. So, this taxpayer has decided to apply for a short-term plan which gives them an extension of time to pay their balance. The plan summary details will tell them the plan type, the payoff amount including penalties and interest. A setup fee if there is one, and how many days they will have to pay it off and the due date for the first payment. Every taxpayer will need to agree to the terms and conditions by checking the box and clicking submit. Now here the taxpayer will see an immediate confirmation of the plan that they just set up. It will say plan approved, if approved, and the page will provide the same details as the plan summary details, confirming what they just agreed to. Now I will walk us through the Tax Records Tab. So, on this Tax Records Tab, this page has a summary of key information from the most recent tax return on the file. This return summary will update to whichever is the most recent return we have. We know taxpayers often need their AGI if they're switching from one tax software to another, and they can look it up very easily here rather than looking at their whole transcript. If they need a full transcript, though, they can access those from here too. This year, we added Economic Impact Payment information to help taxpayers look up the amount they received when preparing their tax return. For the third Economic Impact Payment, what's shown under 2021 is the amount of the most recent payment sent. We plan to update this in January to show the total, which some taxpayers may need when filing. We have several new features that have launched. I'll summarize those here, Tax Pro Authorizations, create a short term payment plan, manage notification preferences, opt-out of paper notices and make a payment. Also, online account was recently launched in Spanish; and update address on file is planned to be launched soon. Michael, that's all we have. I'm sending it back over to you now.

Michael Smith: All right. Thank you, Nicol and Adheet and all of our speakers so far. So, hello again, it's me Michael Smith, and it is now the time that I'll be moderating our Q&;A session. All right, so we want, we are looking forward to answering your questions, but before we start the session, I want to thank everyone for attending today's presentation Digital Day by IRS' Online Services. Earlier I mentioned that we want to know what questions you have for our presenters. So here is your opportunity. If you haven't input your questions, there is still time for you to do so now, go ahead and click on the drop down arrow next to the Ask Question field. And that's on the left side of your screen, type in your question and click send. And then we have Sharyn, Nadia, and Adheet staying on with us to answer your question. And one thing before we start, we may not have time to answer all the questions submitted. But we'll answer as many as time allows. Let's go ahead and get started. We can get to as many questions as possible. All right, I'll start with some of the shorter ones that I can see just to get us going. So, here's the first question that we have. How can a tax preparer find out their CAF number if it's been forgotten? And for our speakers today, if you need me to repeat a question or didn't catch the whole thing? Some of these are a little lengthy. Just ask me to repeat them. And I'd be happy to do so. Well, that question again was how can a tax preparer find out their CAF number if it has been forgotten? Sharyn Fisk: So hi, Michael, this is Sharyn. A tax preparer can find out their CAF number if it's been forgotten a number of different ways. And one is to call the PPS line, that is the Practitioner Priority Service line, they can identify your CAF number for you. Of course, I was in the same boat. So, I just, I did look through some of my old paperwork, you can look at any automated communications that came from the IRS to you. And if you don't have a CAF number, or you forgotten yours, and you can no longer remember it, and you just want to get the ball rolling. If you file a Form 2848, and I'm talking about the form, you can't do this online, if you file a Form 2848 or an 8821, and leave the CAF line blank, the IRS will assign you a CAF number. Now, it's good to have just one CAF number. So, you don't want multiple CAF numbers, it's going to cause a lot of confusion. But if you do have multiple CAF numbers, that should be because you work out of multiple locations. So, let's say you have a Downtown, Los Angeles CAF number. And then you, were your clients you serve as clients at that office. And then you have a Long Beach CAF number because it has an address in Long Beach and you service your Long Beach clients there. All right, so hopefully that answered it. Michael Smith: All right. Thank you so much, Sharyn. Yes, I think that explains it very well. Thank you. Okay, the next question, and it looks like this one pertains to online account. And the question is, where do you go in online account or taxpayer account to find a POA request? Adheet Gaddamanugu: Thank you, Michael. I will take that. So, taxpayers when they log into online account, if they have a tax professional authorization to approve, they will see the notification for that on the homepage. So, they can click on that notification to go to the request or they could also click on the Authorizations tab and view the POA request over on that screen to. Additionally, if the user has opted into email notifications for tax professional authorizations, then the user would get an email for that too. And the user can start the journey from their email where they click on a link, and then they'd be taken to log into online account.

And once they've logged in, they would be taken to the page in online account where they can view the authorization and take action on it. Over to you, Michael. Michael Smith: All right. Thank you, Adheet. Okay, next question. This one's a little shorter one. The question is, do you have to be an EA or an enrolled agent to submit 2848? And what about 8821? Nadia Bazarov: I'll take this one, Michael. Michael Smith: Okay. Nadia Bazarov: Yes, if you would like to submit POA using Tax Pro Account and remember Tax Pro Account does not deal with forms, per se. So, we're not calling it Form 2848. We're calling it the simple POA. So, in order to use Tax Pro Account to submit a POA request, you do have to be one of those five designations. An Enrolled Agent is one of them. Its designation are A, B, C, G, and R, including Enrolled Agents, Attorneys, CPAs, the Enrolled Retirement Plan Agents and Enrolled Actuaries. And anyone with an existing CAF number can use the Tax Pro Account to submit a TIA request. Again, it's not a Form 8821, it is simpler TIA and anyone with an existing CAF number can do that in Tax Pro Account. Michael Smith: Okay, thanks, Nadia.

Thanks for that explanation. All right. And I can see that these are kind of split up some are Tax Pro Account questions, some are Online Account questions. So, I've tried to split these back and forth, so we can get different responders. Thank you, guys, so much for answering these so far.

Adheet, I think this one might be best for you. And it's kind of follows up on what you just answered before. So maybe this will help explain it a little further with your answer. So, the question here is, do taxpayers get emails notifying them that they need to approve a POA or TIA form in their account? Adheet Gaddamanugu: Thanks, Michael. So, the answer is yes. And that is if the taxpayer signs up to receive email notifications, and also gets the authorizations from tax professional option. Now, please note that this was a recently launched email type option. So, if a taxpayer previously opted into receiving emails in Online Account, they might have to go back into online account and select this option too. So, they may have, they'll have to go into online account, go to their profile page, go to the update email notifications, email notification settings, and then edit that and add the authorizations from tax professional option and save.

So, once they enable that, the taxpayers would be able to receive an email notification when a tax professional submits one for approval. Michael Smith: Okay, okay. All right. I think that answers that. All right. Thank you, Adheet. Okay, next question. And this one does appear to be Tax Pro Account related, and it is a little longer. So let me know if you need me to read this one again.

But I think there's a common situation that tax practitioners run into. So, it's a really good question. All right, so the question reads, I signed up for ID.me and have uploaded powers of attorney for two clients. I tried to order transcripts, but the clients have not authorized me to get them. Doesn't the Power of Attorney work the same in this issue? Sharyn Fisk: I'll take that one, Michael. So yes, Power of Attorney should give you access to receive your client's information for the tax periods and the tax years and the tax forms that are on that Form 2848 or that online Power of Attorney, unless your client and I don't even believe there's a line for it, the line is additional acts authorized not for additional acts not authorized. I'm not quite sure what your client means by that you're not authorized to get them. But if they chose that, then they will have to get the transcripts for you. If they have an online account, they can get three years worth of transcripts, through their online account provide those to you. Now, if you did your online Power of Attorney for these clients, and then you immediately went over to the transcript delivery system, you might not have been able to get transcripts right away because there is some overnight processing that has to occur once that online POA is written automatically to the CAF.

But then the CAF does have to talk to the IRS' other e-services such as Transcript Delivery System. So, would we have that instant access to TDS but you should be able to check it a couple days later and see if you can get those transcripts online. Hopefully that answers that question.

Back to you, Michael. Michael Smith: All right. Thank you, Sharyn. All right. I hope that clarifies it. Great, all right, let's look at another one here. Okay, back to I'll do a couple that are focused on online accounts with individual online accounts. First one, can a taxpayer make an online payment for estimated taxes without a balance view amount? Adheet Gaddamanugu: Yes, so even without a balanced view, a taxpayer can make estimated tax payments in advance of filing his or her return. This can be done using the Make a payment feature available on the online account homepage, or on the payments option, Payment Options page. Please note that at this time, pay by bank account is the only payment method currently supported to make estimated tax payments.

Hopefully that answers the question, back to you, Michael. Michael Smith: Yes, that's perfect.

Thanks, Adheet. And while I have you here, let me ask you another one, because this seems directly related too. So, this question is, will notices mailed before an online account was created be available to view on the online account? Adheet Gaddamanugu: No, only notices generated after a taxpayer creates his or her online account will be available online. And additionally, this applies only to the 7 notice types that are currently available digitally. Thank you. Michael Smith: Okay.

So that's good to know that it might be best to create an online account as soon as possible to make sure that you have access to those notices. All right. Okay, thanks, Adheet. Nicol Collins: And Michael, can I just, Adheet, I think Adheet meant to say 17, didn't mean to say seven. Michael Smith: The number of notices? Nicol Collins: Notice types, yes, yes. Adheet Gaddamanugu: Yes, I truly apologize. Yes, 17 notice types, yes. Michael Smith: Okay, thanks, Adheet, yes and thanks for catching that, Nicol. Okay, okay, here's more of a general question. Is paper submission of 8821 still accepted? Nadia Bazarov: That's an easy one. Yes, absolutely. By introducing Tax Pro Account, we did not take away any of the existing ways to submit authorizations to IRS. So, paper submission is still available. Also, Submit Forms 2848 and 8821 Online is available, in addition to Tax Pro Account. Michael Smith: All right, thank you, Nadia. And that's good to know, Tax Pro account is an additional tool, did not remove any existing tools. Good to know. Thank you so much.

All right. Now this one is also related to Tax Pro Account. Do you have to be an EA, enrolled agent or CPA certified public accountant to be able to use a Tax Pro Account for your clients?

Nadia Bazarov: No, you do not. You need to be an Attorney, a CPA an EA, Enrolled actuary, Enrolled Retirement Plan Agent and those who have a CAF number can use the Online Account to create an online POA. If you have a CAF number, let's say you're an unenrolled return preparer or an Annual Filing Season Program Record of Completion holder right one of our AFSP folks, if you have a CAF member, you can create an online TIA, an online Tax information authorization which will allow you to receive information from the IRS regarding your clients for the tax years and the tax matters identified in that authorization. Michael Smith: Okay. All right. Thank you for that. And hopefully that clarifies the question for anybody out there. All right, let's see what else we have here. Okay, online account question. And this one should be pretty straightforward. The question is, where should the taxpayer go to get access to their online accounts? Adheet Gaddamanugu: Yes, so taxpayers can go to the IRS.gov homepage and navigate to the online account landing page by clicking on the Sign into Your Account, or they can directly go to the page by putting in IRS.gov/account into the browser. And once on the Online Account landing page, they can click on Sign into Your Online Account button. And that will allow them to log in using their username and password. Or if they need to register, they can continue, then they can register by verifying their identity. Michael Smith: All right, perfect. Yes, IRS.gov. All right. Thank you so much for that, Adheet. Okay, let's get to another question here. And this one is a bit more of a general question, too. And the question is, can you upload a Form 2848 as/for a business entity?

Nadia Bazarov: I assume this is a question for Tax Pro Account. And the short answer is not yet.

Now, Tax Pro Account supports individual tax professionals, working with individual taxpayers or not. Yes, individual tax professionals can represent individuals representing a business.

Supporting businesses is on our roadmap and we are definitely planning to expand Tax Pro Account to support businesses in the future. Michael Smith: All right, good to know, Nadia. Thank you. And I think it's good for the audience to hear that too, it's good to keep coming back to these webinars, because each year new tools, new items, new features are added. And this is where they get the most up to date information and we are glad we can take time to answer these questions and provide them. So, thank you very much. All right, here's another one. And this is regarding Tax Pro Account. Well, this question reads, I have a personal IRS account and use ID.me. Will I need to establish another account or a Tax Pro Account? Nadia Bazarov: All right, easy answer. No, you do not. So, you've got your ID.me address. And let's say you've used it like this individual here for your personal IRS account, you use that same login, name credential, same login ID.me process to get into Tax Pro Accounts, the difference of all for that matter to getting into Transcript Delivery System. So, it's the starting point of where you're clicking the link to get in that indicates where you're going. So, it's all the same login information. It's just where are you starting from personal account, Tax Pro Account, Transcript Delivery System. Michael Smith: All right. Good to hear. And definitely good news for all of our listeners as well, I'm sure. Okay, bear with me folks. So, you have a lot of questions. Thank you for all the engagement and participation. But it does take me a minute to look through each one of these to find a good question here. So, all right. And this next one is in regarding signatures on a Form 2848. So, here's how the question reads. And let me know if you need me to repeat this. So, the question is, did I hear correctly, electronic signatures are okay to use for the paper 2848, if so, that would be helpful for international clients. Nadia Bazarov: Thank you for that. Go ahead, Sharyn.

Sharyn Fisk: Yes, you did hear correctly, you can have an electronic signature on a Form 2848 or a Form 8821. However, and that can be the electronic signature of the taxpayer, or for the tax professional. However, this is the kicker, you've got to submit those authorization forms through the IRS platform, Submit Form 2848 and 8821 Online, I'll repeat that. Just Google it, Submit Form 2848 and 8821 Online, that is the platform where you can upload and submit those electronically signed authorizations. If you send electronically signed and that could be you've used Adobe signature, you've typed in the name you've used. One of those, the signature pads, electronic signature pad, anything that's not a real wet signature. You have to submit them through that process, there's a couple of questions that they're asking. Those will go to the CAF system, they will join the processing line, like those that come in through the mail and fax, First In First Out system. And they will get processed as long as everything else is correct your IP address and social and all that good stuff. And I do want to add, I think I saw another question was very similar. They are those are put in, like I said, it's first come first serve in the CAF unit.

However, the ones that come in through the Submit Form 2848 and 8821 Online do get into the CAF faster than those that come into by fax, because the ones coming in through that Submit Forms 2848 and 8821 Online come in as one individual POA, or TIA, or sorry, one individual 2848, or one individual 8821 and they can get into the processing system faster. There's no path, no fax number, or sorry, fax cover that has to be separated from the authorization and sometimes people fax multiple authorizations, those all have to get divided up into individual files. So, you want to get into the pipeline faster. Go through Submit Forms 2848 and 8821 Online, you can submit handwritten ones with signatures and electronic. If you try to submit an electronic signature through fax or by mail, the CAF unit will not process though. That's it for all that, Michael.

Michael Smith: Okay, thank you for that clarification, Sharyn. And I'm sure that's welcome news for everyone listening in. Glad you were able to clarify and give so much detail on it. That's good to hear. Okay, and that gave me some time to take a look at the next questions coming up. All right, so this one is geared more towards the individual online account. And this question reads, if the taxpayer establishes an online account, will all notifications from the IRS be sent electronically? And not both electronic and paper, but I think the question is, will all notifications be automatically sent electronically if an online account is set up and not full electronic and paper? Adheet Gaddamanugu: Not really. Even after the taxpayer creates an Online Account, all notices and letters will be on paper and sent via mail to the address on file. PDF versions of the 17 notice types that are currently available digitally will be available in Online Account. And only for those digitally available notices, the user can choose to not receive paper copies by updating the paperless setting in the online account profile page. So, a user will continue to receive paper copies of notices until they create an online account and select to go paperless for the 17 notice types that are available digitally. And even that won't happen until the user opts into going paperless for those notice types. Michael Smith: Okay. Okay, good to hear, thanks Adheet. All right. Next question we have. And this one comes up frequently. I think it's more of a security question. And Nicol, if you're on, you might want to answer this but or any of you that's available. But the question is, what if I don't want to use ID.me because of facial recognition? Nicol Collins: Michael, I can take that one. So, this is a great question. So, in February, the IRS announced that you can now create an ID.me account without the use of facial recognition, facial recognition, or biometric data. In addition to creating an account with the ID.me self-service process, you can create an ID.me account using a live video chat. So, all selfie, video and biometric data are automatically deleted for users who verify for the IRS.

Hopefully that helps. Michael Smith: All right, that does, thanks Nicol. Okay, here should be a relatively simple question, or just shorter question. But the question is, how do I change my address on CAF or the centralized authorization file? Nadia Bazarov: I'll take this one. You may change your address on CAF by providing a new address on any new subsequent Form 2848 or 8821.

Unfortunately, there is no way yet you can update your address using the Tax Pro Account application, you will need to send in the paper form and on a form just, so this will be a brief notification of the new address will be sent to the location where the forms were filed. Michael Smith: Okay. All right. Thanks for answering that, Nadia. And let's see, I'm going to all right, I have another question that kind of focuses around both tax pro and online accounts. And the question reads, do both taxpayer and preparer or are both the taxpayer and the preparer required to have ID.me account? Sharyn Fisk: This is Sharyn. I'm not sure that there's a combination tax pro and online account question, but I think I can do it. No, both the taxpayer and the tax preparer at this time are not required to have an ID.me account. For Tax Pro Account, you can still use your secure access login information, or you can use ID.me to access your Tax Pro Account. Though at some point in the future, we'll be moving to an ID.me login and not having that secure access registration. And maybe Adheet or Nicol can confirm on the Online Account side whether secure registration is still available. Is it all ID.me? Nicol Collins: Sharyn, this is Nicol. I can help do you too. It's the same. But Adheet, go ahead and add to it. Sharyn Fisk: Perfect. Adheet Gaddamanugu: No. You can't. It's the same. So currently, users are able to use ID.me or secure authorization. But secure authorization is planned to be disabled sometime in the future. But currently users can use both types. Michael Smith: Okay, all right. Thank you all for that clarification. So, I think that's what the question was getting at that. And the answer is no, you do still have both options with your authorization and ID.me at present. Okay. All right.

Good to know. Okay, here's a question regarding 2848 and authorizations. And let me just read this how it was written and feel free to ask me to clarify or read it again, if needed. But then the question reads, if an enrolled agent requests a 2848 and authorizes two other representatives, or two others on that 2848. Do those other representatives have to be enrolled agents, or can they be an enrolled agent? Sharyn Fisk: Okay, so, for that one, we got a couple of things here. So, we do have an enrolled agent who is authorized to be representative on either a Form 2848 or an online POA put into the Tax Pro Account. Now we have some other representatives, those representatives for the online account, if it's an online, POA would have to be an attorney, a CPA, enrolled agents or some of our other enrolled folks be enrolled. Actuaries and Enrolled Retirement Plan agents. Unenrolled preparers are not allowed to be a representative on online POA or on a Form 2848. They don't have the credentials that allow them to represent somebody before the IRS. So those other reps do need to be one of those designation codes that I just listed. Now, it could be an Annual Filing Season Program Record of Completion holder or AFSP folks, but that would have to be a paper Form 2848, because we haven't quite got the AFSP folks on to the online Tax Pro Account. Yes. Michael Smith: Okay. All right. Thanks for that answer. I think that clarifies it.

Well, thank you for providing that. All right. Rolling through looking for other ones here. All right here is a general one. And this may not be something you're able to answer with any specifics. But the question is, when will businesses be able to sign up for an online account?

Nadia Bazarov: I will try to tackle this one. So, the question is, well, it potentially has two parts, that's Tax Pro account and online accounts, depending on the context for the question. We do not as IRS, we do not yet offer online accounts for businesses, but we are planning to work on one. So, it is a longer-term plan to establish online accounts that businesses can use in a similar way to how our individual online accounts our used by individual taxpayers today. In addition, on the Tax Pro Account side, as I mentioned earlier, we are planning to expand our capabilities to support businesses, both tax professionals working as part of tax professional business, and also support business taxpayers as a client. So, while it's not available today, and now and might not be there tomorrow, please know that this is definitely a part of our longer-term strategic roadmap. Michael Smith: Okay. All right. Thanks for that, Nadia. So yes, everybody in the audience. I'm sure that's a very anticipated tool that will be coming. So yes, please stay engaged with us. Keep coming to these webinars, and we'll provide you news on the availability of that as it comes on. All right. Thank you so much Nadia for answering that one. Okay, let's switch back to a couple of online account questions. And this one's a little bit shorter. Adheet, you may be able to answer this one. What years does the taxpayer online account cover? Adheet Gaddamanugu: Sure. So online account shows a cumulative balance, including any outstanding taxes, penalties and interest across all years. We also show a tax record summary for the most recent tax return on file. We show balanced details by year for the past, up to the past five years. And taxpayers are also able to access downloadable tax returns for the past 10 years. So those are the years along with the information for you, as part of that that we cover in, that we currently cover in online account. Michael Smith: Okay. All right. Perfect. Thanks, Adheet. Okay, and we follow-up with another online account question. And you mentioned that there are 17 notices right now. And the question is, are IP PIN letters have labeled CP01A available online? Adheet Gaddamanugu: Yes. So, the IP PIN letters which is the CP01A notice type that is currently available digitally and within online account. So yes. Michael Smith: All right. Okay, let's see here. Now this one is an ID.me question. And this question reads, I have an ID.me account with a state agency. Do I need to go through ID.me again? Sharyn Fisk: No, you do not that. ID.me is good across the multiple state and federal agencies. So, it's a one-time process with, it's more than a twofer. It's a multiple of that. Michael Smith: All right. Great. Good to know. Yes. Once you're up on ID.me. You're good to go. Okay. All right. Let's see what the next question is here. All right, so this question reads, will the tax pro account show all authorizations or only online authorization through tax pro? Nadia Bazarov: Today in tax pro account, we show only authorizations that were requested through tax pro account. However, and this is important because I'm no longer saying it's a long-term plan. It's actually work in progress. We are currently working to implement in our next major release of Tax Pro Account the ability for the tax professional to view all of their active authorizations on CAF. And what I'm sure will be welcome news. We're also working to give tax professional abilities to the troll from active authorization. So, they are just coming. It is in the works. And we ask for patience, it will take some time, but it will be there in the next major release. Michael Smith: Okay, that's really good news to hear. I'm sure a lot of us will be excited to hear more about that and have more access to the authorization. Okay, great. Thanks, Nadia. Okay, we've got time for a few more questions here. So, let's see what we can get. Okay, this one's about IRS online account. This is a common one. I think we get this pretty frequently. So, let's see if we can get some clarification here.

So, this question is, can U.S. taxpayers residing outside the country, are they able to open an IRS online account? Adheet Gaddamanugu: Yes, so all U.S. taxpayers whether they reside within the U.S. or in a foreign country, they should be able to open IRS online account. If you live outside the U.S., you may need to use the video agent option with ID.me instead of the self-service process to verify your identity. You'll see this option presented during the ID.me account creation process. And if a user needs assistance, help is available by visiting help.id.me. And selecting Verifying for the Internal Revenue Service. So, the, all users should be able to create ID.me account and be able to access IRS online account from anywhere in the world. Michael Smith: All right. That's also good news. Thanks Adheet. Okay. We got time for a couple more. Okay, how about this one? This one asks about online accounts, and maybe Tax Pro Account? So, the question reads, can we access the online account of a trust or a 990 form or a 990 in general? Sharyn Fisk: Well, this is Sharyn, if it's a, we're talking about a Tax Pro Account. At this time, we only use individual taxpayers to literally link over to an individual taxpayer's online account. If we're talking about taxpayers' online accounts, I am going to throw that one over to the online account folks. Adheet Gaddamanugu: Thanks, Sharyn. And that is exactly the same for individual online accounts too. It does need to tie back to an individual taxpayer at this time. Michael Smith: Okay, okay. All right. And one last general question about, looks like it's centered around the 2848.

So, the question is, I'm licensed CPA in three states, must I list all three states on the power of attorney form? Sharyn Fisk: No, you do not. You just want to list the, your license on the online POA where you will be practicing your services for that particular taxpayer. So, if you're practicing in Michigan then and you're submitting a POA regarding the client, you're going to be speaking to the IRS with then put down your Michigan CPA license state identification number.

Michael Smith: Okay, perfect. All right. Thanks for that clarification. All right, folks. It looks like we are out of time for our questions and answers. And thank you so much, Sharyn, Nadia, Nicol, Adheet for answering all those questions and providing your expertise. So, audience that's all the time we have. Let's thank our presenters for sharing their knowledge, expertise answering questions. Before we close out the Q&;A, session Sharyn and team do you have any key points that you want the attendees to remember from today's webinar? Sharyn Fisk: Yes, so key points for the individual tax professionals when accessing the Tax Pro Account are the tax professional can initiate, electronically sign, and submit Powers of Attorney a POA and Tax Information Authorization a TIA requests online. The tax professional must have a CAF number to use the Tax Pro Account. The Tax Pro Account cannot be used to request the CAF number. And the Tax Pro Account supports simple POAs and TIAs for individual taxpayers only. In order for the IRS to validate an online POA or TIA, you must use the exact address on file with the IRS for both the tax professional and the taxpayer. The tax pro account cannot be used to update an address. The Tax Pro Account supports POAs with multiple representatives for the POAs and TIAs with multiple designees. So that is all the key points that I have, Michael, back to you. Michael Smith: All right. Thank you so much, Sharyn. Nicol, any key points for online accounts? Nicol Collins: Yes, we do, Michael. Thank you. So, if you haven't already, we encourage you to log into your online account and tell your clients about it. Taxpayers can do the following. They can view their balance, tax records, and notices, make and view payments, view payment plan details, view account notification and view their address on file. Additionally, they can make a same day payment. They can set up a payment plan if eligible. They can view the total amounts of their Economic Impact Payment, view and approve authorization and view digital copies of certain notices from the IRS so 17 Adheet mentioned. They can, taxpayers can opt out of paper notices and they can opt into email notifications for digital copies of new notices. Now I'll turn it back over to you, Michael.

Michael Smith: Okay, thank you, Nicol. So, audience we are planning additional webinars throughout the year. To register for all upcoming webinars, please visit our website IRS.gov and use a keyword search, Webinars and select the Webinars for Tax Practitioners or Webinars for Small Businesses. When appropriate, we will be offering certificates and CE credit for upcoming webinars. We invite you to visit our video portal as well at www.irsvideos.gov. There you can view archived versions of our webinars. Please note, continuing education credits or certificates of completion are not offered if you view any version of our webinars after the live broadcast. We got a big thank you to our panel Sharyn, Nadia, Nicol, and Adheet for a great webinar today.

Sharing our expertise answering your questions we truly are grateful. And I also want to thank you our attendees for attending today's webinar, Digital Day by IRS' Online Services. If you attended today's webinar for at least 100 minutes after the official start time you will receive a certificate of completion that you can use with your credentialing organization for two possible CE credits. If you stayed on for at least 50 minutes from the official start time of the webinar; you will qualify for one possible CE credit. Again, the time we spent chatting before the webinar started doesn't count towards those 50 or 100. If you're eligible for continuing education from the IRS and registered with your valid PTIN. Your credit will be posted in your PTIN account. If you qualify and you have not received your certificate and/or credit by October 6th, please just email us at cl.sl.web.conference.team@irs. gov. The email address is shown on this slide as well. We'll take a minute and jot that it down if you need to. If you're interested in finding out who your local stakeholder liaison is, you can also send us an email using the address shown on this slide and we'll send you that. Before we close out the webinar, we do want to hear from you. So, we'd like you to take a minute to answer the following questions. One, did you know you could securely view your account information on IRS.gov before this webinar? And two, do you have an online account on IRS.gov? You can enter your response in the Ask Question field. And we do thank you for sharing your responses. Because we do want to know just how many have Online Account access. We would also appreciate it if you'd take a few minutes to complete a short evaluation before you exit. If you'd like to have more sessions like this one, let us know. If you have thoughts on how we can make them better. Let us know that as well. If you have requests for future webinar topics, or pertinent information, that's something you'd like to see in an IRS Factsheet, the Tax Tip or FAQ on IRS.gov. And please include your suggestions in the comment section of the survey. Click the survey button on the screen to begin. If it doesn't come up, just check to make sure that you disabled your popup blocker and it should appear. Finally, it's been a pleasure to be here with you. And on behalf of the Internal Revenue Service and our presenters. We'd like to thank you for attending today's webinar. It's important for the IRS to stay connected with the tax professional community, individual taxpayers, industry associations along with federal, state, and local government organizations. You make our job a lot easier by sharing the information that allows for proper tax reporting. So, thanks again for taking time out of your day to attend today's webinar.

We hope you found the information helpful and you may now exit the webinar at this time.