Call it Zoom for improvement.
The Internal Revenue Service's Independent Office of Appeals is inviting input on best practices for video conferences with taxpayers and tax pros.
During the pandemic, Appeals
In March 2021, Appeals issued interim guidance on video conferences, detailing the IRS employee responsibilities, procedures for verifying authorized participants and technology prerequisites. The guidance also includes recommendations for a professional meeting environment, such as reducing background distractions, muting audio when not speaking and ensuring that Appeals employees' names are displayed for taxpayers.
As Appeals prepares permanent guidelines and updates to the video conferencing technology (Microsoft Teams), the department wants input from taxpayers and tax professionals on how video conference technology can be used in an Appeals hearing. Themes of comments so far include:
- Video conferences can often provide a better taxpayer experience than a telephone conference.
- Video conferences that allow for screen sharing of documents can lead to a more comprehensive discussion of the issues and potentially earlier resolution.
- Appeals should endeavor to keep technical requirements for video conferences to a minimum and ensure other channels for conducting an Appeals conference (such as in person or by telephone) remain available.
Public comments can be sent to
The Appeals office resolves federal tax disputes without litigation and schedules conferences with taxpayers or their representative; conferences are by telephone, video or in person. Generally, the taxpayer or their representative chooses how to meet with the office.
