I hope most of you have not been bamboozled by the GOP claims that the new funds we (that means the budget) have provided the IRS have only on purpose.   And that was purported to be to hound the general (read lower half or 60%) population taxpayer.  Sorry, folks,  nothing could be further from the truth.

When those new targeted audits will start (which will be after significantly new numbers of personnel are on board), those targeted  will serve to assay compliance of those at the top of the economic map with IRS reporting regulations..

In the meantime, the IRS is using its new resources to adjust services to make it easier for many of us to respond to the IRS. (And for the IRS to respond to us!) Starting with the fact that the IRS now allows us to file amended tax returns- with payments should they be required- electronically.  (Yes, that also helps the IRS, since they are still behind on correspondence paperwork, but still.)

Now, this past Friday,  they have identified nine common notices that are routinely mailed to taxpayers asking for more information- or explanations.  How many taxpayers are involved with this data collection and audit process?  How about ½ million or so?

So, the IIRS has now enabled usto upload our response to the IRS.  We are no longer required to mail our responses in. We will also know the IRS has received our response and that will  speed up issue resolution, since no one will have to painstakingly enter the mailed-in document into the IRS computers.  After all, we have uploaded our responses directly to the IRS.

These notices range from inquiries about the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) [low/moderate income workers]; the Child Tax Credit (CTC) for folks with dependents, the Premium Tax Credit (for those who fail to recognize that Form 1095B requires inclusion in our 1040 package- because we owe or have been owed money for the subsidies we obtained with our Affordable Care Act insurance coverage-; the IRS even included documents sent to the military claiming combat zone benefits.

Oh- it gets better.  You can upload these responses even if you don’t have an IRS  Online Account.  Yep- the IRS has created a “Document Upload Tool” for us to use. The form requests us to respond to the IRS within 30 days of receiving said notice. And, the form includes a link- and a special access code. (Besides the code, we must submit our first and last names,  social security(SSN) (or Individual Taxpayer Identification Number [ITIN]) , or our EIÑ (Employer Identification  number)- and then add scans, photos, digital document copies- up to 40 of them, as long as none are bigger than 15 MB each.

Note further that this is just the first steps.  The IRS plans to add a slew of other notices to which we can auto-upload our responses.

Maybe there can be a kinder, gentler IRS.