The IRS announced today that tax professionals can renew their PTIN, an identification number used on tax returns. Seeing no reason to delay spending $63.00 I went headfirst into the process.
What a kludge. And yes, I’m being derisive. The IRS converted my user ID to all capital letters from all lowercase. I had to have the IRS email me my user ID (which is how I discovered this). Next, the password I set up last year didn’t work. I don’t know if they converted that, too, to all caps but I had a temporary password emailed to me.
Then I went to the application itself (after resetting the temporary password). I went through it, and it said there was a problem. The software didn’t take me to the problem — that would be too easy. Instead, it took me back to the beginning of the application. I figured out that I needed to enter the expiration date of my credential (Enrolled Agent), and had to edit the line where my EA number showed up. (There is nothing on this line to note there is missing information, btw.) It then allowed me to conclude and give the IRS $63.00. (The cost if you are a first-time PTIN registrant is $64.25.)
I’m underwhelmed.
Tags: PTINs
[…] The IRS announced that renewals are open. Seeing no reason to wait I decided to log into the system. I did remember that my user name is all caps (the IRS converted it back for year 2 of PTIN renewals, 2011). […]