The IRS has launched the new Tax Pro Account on irs.gov. This new feature is one of many recent enhancements to the Online Account for individuals. It provides the ability for taxpayers to connect online with their tax professional. The tax professional will long into the Tax Pro Account to digitally initiate Power of Attorney (POA) and Tax Information Authorization (TIA) requests. Once completed and submitted by the tax professional, the authorization requests will appear in the taxpayers' Online Account for their review, approval or rejection and electronic signature. Because the taxpayers' identities already are verified at the time of login, they simply check a box as their signature and submit the authorization request to the IRS. If completely accurately, the request will go directly to the Centralized Authorization File (CAF) database and will not require manual processing. Some requests will be available immediately while some may take up to 48 hours.
View the full IRS Announcement
The IRS has created the following taxpayer facing products to increase awareness of this new process.
- Publication 5533, Why You Should Create an IRS Online Account – Share with taxpayers; outlines the benefits of having an IRS Online Account
- Publication 5533-A, How to Submit Authorizations Using Tax Pro Account and Online Account – Share with taxpayers; outlines how the new digital authorization process works
- Publication 5533-B, Benefits of Tax Pro Account and Digital Authorizations - Share with tax professional colleagues; outlines the benefits of Tax Pro Account and digital requests
