IRS Announces E-Services Help Desk Line and E-Services Closed

The IRS has announced the temporary closure of the Practitioner Priority Service (PPS) line, the e-Services Help Desk line and the e-Services, FIRE and AIR system help desks due to staff limitations.The email sent out to practitioners reads:

Dear Tax Professionals,

Due to staff limitations, the Practitioner Priority Service (PPS) line, the e-Services Help Desk line and the e-Services, FIRE and AIR system help desks are closed until further notice. Please make IRS.gov your first option for answers to questions. The IRS is temporarily suspending acceptance of new Income Verification Express Services (IVES) requests at this time and are experiencing delays with existing IVES processing as well as CAF number authorizations. Practitioners with e-Services accounts and with client authorization can access the Transcript Delivery System to obtain prior-year transcripts. Taxpayers should use Where’s My Refund? and Get Transcript, both common requests. Additionally, the IRS is unable to answer any questions as yet on stimulus payments. Normal operations will resume as soon as possible. Please check IRS.gov for updates.

We apologize for the inconvenience during this difficult period.

To help you answer questions

Understanding how important it is to keep staff safe, the unfortunate effect of closing those hotlines is that it’s now more difficult for CPAs to file tax returns. AICPA’s Tax Policy & Advocacy Team is pushing Treasury and IRS to extend the relief to all types of filers and the different filings, including information returns and exempt organization returns, in addition to the already-announced April 15th deadline extension to July 15. We’re also pushing for the relief to apply to all types of taxes (including Q2 estimated tax payments and excise taxes).

You can find the state tax filing relief chart is at this link – we update it daily.

The IRS posted FAQs on its website this week about the filing and payment relief. The information is helpful – but more is needed. As you’ve sent questions from members, the Tax Advocacy Team is making sure those questions are on the list for IRS to answer. I’ll share those answers as IRS makes them available.

Stay tuned for more updates regarding IRS e-services.