The IRS added Appeals employees to those permitted to accept digital signatures and images of signatures and receive documents by email in specified situations. In a memo (attached), the IRS extended this temporary "deviation" as described in an earlier memo to service and enforcement employees. Qualifying documents include "any … statement or form needing the signature of a taxpayer or representative submitted to Appeals."

According to the new memo, IRS Appeals employees may accept images of signatures (scanned or photographed) and digital signatures on forms used in the Appeals process (as listed in IRM 8.6.4) through tiff, jpg, jpeg, pdf, Microsoft Office suite, or Zip files. A taxpayer may also electronically submit a request for Post-Appeals Mediation with the information as described in IRM 8.26.5 and IRM 8.26.9.

The memo noted that the "choice to transmit documents electronically is solely that of the taxpayer." Taxpayers who are not able to use eFax or IRS secure messaging systems may use email with attachments as long as the taxpayer and IRS employee take proper steps, including authenticating the identity of the taxpayer by phone, verbally verifying the email address, advising the taxpayer that communications via unencrypted email over the internet are not secure, making a record in the case file, uploading the documents in ACDS, and forwarding documents requiring a manager's signature via encrypted email.

In addition, the taxpayer must include in emails:

"The attached [name of document] includes [name of taxpayer]'s valid signature and the taxpayer intends to transmit the attached document to Appeals."

Implications

This new guidance from Appeals is consistent with earlier guidance from the Deputy Commissioner for Services and Enforcement in that it allows the use of email and digital signatures when a taxpayer's identity can be verified by an IRS employee. Because interactions with Appeals are most often one-on-one with an individual Appeals Officer, documents submitted to Appeals do not carry with them the same level of risk of fraud and identity theft as other documents, such as tax returns, that are submitted to the agency at-large. As Appeals officers continue to work cases as best they can from home, this guidance provides helpful relief for taxpayers hoping to advance their cases before Appeals amidst widespread stay-at-home orders.

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ATTACHMENT

Appeals Accepting Digital Signatures