Issue Statement: I am a US citizen residing in New Zealand. I need to access my IRS account to see how much money has been credited to me. I have tried to register on-line at this site: https://sa.www4.irs.gov/eauth/pub/es_general.jsp But since I do not have US-based contact details, I am unable to register. This means I have effectively no way to view my account other than a long phone call to the IRS audit people who will only reveal a limited amount of information. The registration process needs to be made available to international US taxpayers.

The question from the group was whether there was one or more options for people to be “validated” without personally appearing. There was push-back from the IRS to the suggestion that tax practitioners should be allowed to use a POA or something similar to validate a client. (While most practitioners are honest, there have apparently been over 3,000 practitioners sanctioned over the years and we’re all familiar with the “refund mills” run by some.) In any case, there was a suggestion that a “certified acceptance agent” could be used to perform this validation. While I’ll admit I have no idea what a certified acceptance agent is (or how you become one), the IRS seemed to think there might be some merit in this idea.

Goal Statement: To make it possible for taxpayers living outside the United States to be able to create and access an online account with the IRS.