This. Is. Amazing. In a Herculean effort to drag itself into the 21st Century, the IRS has finally implemented a “secure messaging” service. This means that instead of calling to discuss matters and playing phone tag — or snail mailing and faxing files to them — we can finally send messages and files via a new secure IRS e-mail system!

Now, lest you get too excited — from what I can tell so far, there are some serious limitations:

• You must be INVITED to participate. Your IRS representative must invite you (the client) and you must register. As long as the accountant has a Power of Attorney on-file for that client, he/she (me!) may use it as well. Under “Tax Preparer Options” there is a “Request Access” button.
• It will be down for maintenance every Friday from 8-11 pm EST.
• It does not seem to be an actual portal or shared “space”, so we still have what is my biggest issue: I like to submit audit files in an organized format, whereby there is a folder that corresponds to each of the listed requests on the IRS letter — with documents in each folder that provide the various types of support being requested. (For example, a folder for “Revenue” that has copies of sales receipts, POS end-of-day scans, invoices, etc.; and a folder for “Fixed Assets” that has copies of packing slips, vendor invoices, depreciation schedules, etc.) It doesn’t look like this system will allow you to upload an entire folder structure, the way a portal or document-sharing system does. But I haven’t confirmed this yet.

Check it out for yourselves! This is real!
Welcome to Secure Messaging | Internal Revenue Service