The IRS is boosting outreach efforts customized to the coronavirus pandemic, including more continuing education webinars, and it will be introducing a campaign early next year to improve communications with the tax professional community.
The agency is going from one or two webinars per month for tax professionals to five in November and December, Derek Ganter, stakeholder liaison director in the IRS communication and liaison division, said November 4 at a virtual seminar sponsored by the East Bay Association of Enrolled Agents.
“We’re trying to figure out more ways to get you guys the information,” Ganter added. “We have the wherewithal to do a lot more of these webinars.”
Ganter’s review of IRS communications echoed that of Sunita Lough, deputy commissioner for services and enforcement, who said on another recent webinar that the agency is “back in business.”
Ganter urged practitioners to submit more ideas for continuing education webinars in the coming months. Two of the planned webinars will feature officials from the Office of Professional Responsibility. One of those will focus exclusively on tax pros’ questions, Ganter said. “There were literally thousands of questions that we couldn’t answer” from previous webinars, he said.
Ganter said his office is also responding to popular practitioner demand by sponsoring a November 19 webinar on the sale of partnership interests. “That particular topic is one that we’ve heard [about] from the tax professional community for a few months,” he said. “You asked, and you will now receive the information.”
According to Ganter, the IRS is also planning a webinar in December updating practitioners on the agency’s efforts to initiate digital electronic signatures for Form 2848, “Power of Attorney and Declaration of Representative,” and for Form 8821, “Tax Information Authorization.”
The IRS expects to be able to accept e-signatures on those forms starting in January, another IRS official said last month.
The IRS will soon be training employees and distributing more practitioner information about Schedule K-1 reporting, Ganter said, describing that as another topic for which tax professionals have asked for clarity.
The agency is also preparing additional practitioner outreach on issues with forms 1099-MISC and 1099-NEC, Ganter said.
Finally, the IRS is reaching out to tax practitioners, small businesses, and other stakeholders regarding plans mandated by the Taxpayer First Act to improve the taxpayer experience, formulate an agencywide training strategy, and propose a reorganization of the tax agency.
Ganter said the IRS’s required report, now in process and due to Congress in December, is “a pretty closely guarded document” that he hasn’t seen. “I won’t find out what’s in it until you guys find out what’s in it, for the most part,” he said.