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Chief Counsel Adds Encryption Options for Emailing Taxpayer Info

JUN. 15, 2020

CC-2020-007

DATED JUN. 15, 2020
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Citations: CC-2020-007
[Editor's Note:

For the entire notice, including attachments, see the PDF version.

]

Date: June 15, 2020

Subject:
Communication with Taxpayers or Representatives by Email

Cancel Date:
Upon incorporation into CCDM

Purpose

This Notice adds two additional encryption options for Chief Counsel employees to transmit email containing return information or personally identifiable information (PII) to taxpayers or their representatives in Tax Court litigation and in conjunction with requests for letter rulings or closing agreements, in addition to the options set out in Chief Counsel Notice CC-2020-002.

Discussion

Chief Counsel Notice CC-2020-002 set out a procedure for Chief Counsel employees to send email containing return information or PII to taxpayers or their representatives, using either the SEMS email encryption system or SecureZIP to encrypt email attachments. Chief Counsel employees may now also use Adobe Acrobat Pro password encryption to encrypt and send email attachments in Adobe Portable Document Format (.pdf), and Microsoft Office 365 Protect Document to encrypt and send email attachments in Microsoft Office formats.

Documents encrypted with Adobe Acrobat Pro password encryption or Microsoft Office 365 Protect Document password encryption may be easier for many recipients to open, particularly recipients who have difficulties using SEMS or SecureZIP (the encryption methods originally described in Chief Counsel Notice 2020-002). Documents encrypted with Adobe Acrobat Pro may be opened and decrypted with recent versions of Adobe Acrobat, or with the free Acrobat Reader DC which is widely distributed and available for free download. Documents encrypted with Office 365 may be opened and decrypted with Microsoft Office 2016 or Microsoft Office 365.

How to Encrypt Using Adobe Acrobat Pro

The files to be encrypted must be in or converted to Adobe.pdf format before they can be encrypted and attached to an email. For electronic files, this can be done within Microsoft Office or the Adobe Acrobat Pro software installed on Chief Counsel computers. Paper files may be scanned to.pdf format using an IRS scanner or multifunction copier/scanner.

The Chief Counsel sender's Adobe Acrobat Pro software must first be properly configured to support 256-bit AES password encryption. Adobe.pdf attachments containing PII or return information must be sent to external recipients using this encryption level. Detailed instructions for doing so are appended to this Notice in Attachment A.

How to Encrypt Using Office 365

Either Office 365 Office 2016 may also be used to encrypt Microsoft Office files. Note that the encryption levels in earlier versions of Office do not meet IRS security standards, so they should not be used. The files to be encrypted must be in an Office format, such as Word, Excel, or PowerPoint. Detailed instructions for encrypting Office 365 files are appended to this Notice in Attachment A.

Memorandum of Understanding

Before sending encrypted attachments to a taxpayer or representative, the taxpayer must execute and return a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) agreeing to the use of the specified email encryption method and acknowledging the risks of using email to send PII and return information, as set forth in CCDM 30.6.1.2.3(4) and Chief Counsel Notice 2020-002 An MOU for Adobe.pdf encryption is attached to this Notice as Attachment B and is also available as a Microsoft Word document on the Litigation Technology page of the Chief Counsel Intranet. An MOU for Microsoft Office 365 encryption is attached to this Notice as Attachment C, and is also available as a Microsoft Word document on the Litigation Technology page of the Chief Counsel Intranet.

The taxpayer must return the executed MOU to Chief Counsel before any encrypted email attachments containing PII or return information may be sent, and the MOU must be retained in the case file.

Technical questions about how to use encrypted email attachments to securely send return information or PII should be directed to the Counsel BSP hotline at 202-317-4469. Questions about this notice should be directed to the Office of the Associate Chief Counsel (Procedure and Administration) at 202-317-5388.

Kathryn A. Zuba
Associate Chief Counsel
(Procedure & Administration)

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