Submitting a Power of Attorney form to the IRS means I must fax the form to the IRS’s Centralized Authorization File (CAF) unit and hope that the POA is entered in timely. A few years ago authorized e-services providers (which I am) could enter the POAs directly in the IRS system but no more.
Meanwhile, California’s Franchise Tax Board (FTB), the state’s income tax agency, has never allowed California POAs to be entered by practitioners. The procedure was to fax or mail them and wait weeks for them to be entered. No more.
The FTB debuted the new MyFTB on January 4th, and it’s a winner. I signed up, and waited for my PIN to be mailed to me (that took the expected 7-10 days). I then input the PIN, and have access. I can see the accounts I’m authorized for, and the new system allows me to enter a POA.
However, the POA does not immediately go into effect. The FTB requires that a pdf of the POA be attached so that the FTB can review it. The FTB states that within two weeks (well, 15 days) the POA will be in their system.
The FTB’s procedure appears to me to allay the issues that the IRS had with rogue professionals entering POAs without authorization. And consider the time savings here. I’ve entered all the information into the FTB’s computer system. An FTB employee can match the pdf I uploaded to the POA I entered. If it matches, the employee can make my POA go live. He or she doesn’t have to retype the information I entered, saving the FTB time (and money). The POA gets into the FTB’s systems faster, making me happy (and my client). It’s a win-win.
There’s a lot more that’s doable with the FTB’s new MyFTB. I can look at account balances, estimated payments amounts (clients get these wrong all the time), 1099 information on the state level (IRS wage and income transcripts don’t have this information), calculate a balance due for a future date, protest an assessment, view images of notices and correspondence, and more.
If you’re a tax professional who deals with California clients or a California taxpayer, I urge you to enroll in MyFTB. I’m very impressed. I may rag on the FTB (especially in the enforcement area) but from my point of view MyFTB is a model to be emulated by the rest of the country.
Such a system, if implemented by the IRS, would also be a win-win. Unfortunately, my expectations on that end aren’t particularly high. Indeed, I’ll be surprised if we see such a system for the IRS in the next five years.
