TAP 04-027

Fax Numbers on Notices

Statement of Issue:

Notices that allow for written communication between the IRS and a taxpayer or tax professional generally do not include a fax number in addition to the phone number and mailing address currently provided.

Proposal:

TAP recommended that the IRS begin including fax numbers on all correspondence that currently includes a telephone number and mailing address. The IRS should eliminate the use of stand-alone fax machines and migrate to the use of fax server technology to increase productivity, achieve cost-savings, and reduce taxpayer burden.

After receipt of the response from the Notices Support Group, TAP forwarded the recommendation to Modernization and Information Technology to consider implementing the necessary technology and processes.

Notice Support Group Acting Chief, Debra Lopez responded as follows:
Including a fax number in addition to a phone number and a mailing address for taxpayers responding to IRS notices has merit. The Standardization Notice Process Improvement Initiative Team has just (3/1/05) finished developing a standard layout for IRS notices. The standard layout contains an option to include an IRS fax number. Current notices do not print a fax number because the supporting processes and technology are not in place. When it becomes feasible to process fax responses, the fax number may be included in the "contact us" section of the notice. This addresses the simple part of your recommendation.

The more complicated part of the suggestion involves, of course, implementing the technology and processes to support it. You identified many of the issues involved in changing equipment and procedures. In addition to those you mentioned, we would be required to analyze and quantify both the cost/benefit and the burden reduction that would result before we could consider moving forward with this idea. Unfortunately, we do not have the funds or the resources to pursue this recommendation at this time.

After receipt of the response from the Notices Support Group, TAP forwarded the recommendation to Modernization and Information Technology to consider implementing the necessary technology and processes.