The IRS is trying to become a bit more security conscious. As part of their efforts, the IRS is having all e-Services account users who use the IRS’s “Transcript Delivery Service” re-validate their identities. Letters are being sent to impacted tax professionals. I received such a letter last week so I had the joy of re-validating my identity.
The IRS wants tax professionals to do this online using the “Get Transcript” online registration. I started to do this, entering my name, address, date of birth, social security number, and tax filing status. The IRS system said the information I entered wasn’t correct. I tried again, making sure I didn’t make any typographical errors. It was correct. I hit “Enter” and, of course, the IRS said it was wrong. Further, because it was wrong they locked me out of the system for 24 hours.
So I called the IRS e-Services help desk to re-validate my identity. After being on hold for 30 minutes, a gentleman picked up, but told me his computer was down so he transferred me to someone else. The new hold time was going to be an hour, and I had an appointment, so this got pushed back a day.
The next day I tried again online. The IRS application accepted that I knew my name, address, and other information. It accepted that I knew my credit card number. It then sends you a text message on your phone. Just one step was left: Entering that number on the screen and I would be re-validated! I got the text just moments later, entered it in, and…the system crashed.
Well, if it worked once it would work again, right? Wrong. When I entered my name and other personal information the system told me I had mis-entered the information and it was locking me out. I called IRS e-Services. After being on hold for 21 minutes a woman picked up and was able to ask me the same questions that the IRS computer did (I also had to read a code off the letter I had received). I’m now validated as me!
Seriously, I’m underwhelmed by this process. This is a prototypical example of a kluge (“A Workaround or quick and dirty solution that is clumsy, inelegant, inefficient, difficult to extend and hard to maintain.”). There’s no reason the IRS system accepted my personal information only one of four tries (it was entered correctly all four times). There’s no reason it should crash as frequently as it does. If you’re an IRS e-Services user, maybe you’ll get lucky and be able to re-validate your identity online…but don’t count on it.
Tags: IRS.eServices