Nonworking IRS fax numbers

[Greta]

Client is trying to respond to an IRS letter using the fax number they indicated. She is getting a response: "This is not a working number."  Another client's given fax number is nonstop busy for a week. Would it make sense to pick another IRS fax number and ask them to forward the information?

[dascpa]

That one really made me laugh.  Sorry, that was sarcastic.

I have open IRS notices where the IRS has not opened the mail we sent in last September.  I haven't received my own 2020 state tax refund.  I heard that 13% of all phone calls to the IRS were actually answered.

And you ....really... expect someone at the IRS to forward a fax?

Please post if it works and what that fax number is.  We'll flood it with IRS notice replies.

[BobKamman]

Last year the problem was that the IRS fax machines were running out of paper and ink, and the companies that maintain them couldn't get in to service them.  This year, the Journal of Accountancy reported about news from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration:

Inadequate equipment also impeded timely processing, TIGTA found. For example, the IRS for the most part is unable to directly import a faxed document from a taxpayer into its computer systems but must print it out and scan it (it also generally scans all paper correspondence received). IRS managers in response to TIGTA's recommendation asked the Service's information technology office last October to implement an electronic connection for faxes, but as of early January this year, the technology had not been implemented, TIGTA reported.

https://www.journalofaccountancy.com/news/2022/mar/tigta-irs-inefficiencies-worsened-backlog.html

Even my most technologically-backwards clients know how to scan a document, or take a picture of it, and send it to me as an email attachment.  IRS is our national disaster area -- they are doing things the way they were done 30 years ago, except they don't have the resources to do much of the necessary work.  

[Dusty2]

Absolutely not!  They are in different locations and many times different divisions.

[JRC]

I'm curious if each IRS employee has their own Fax machine in their homes? 

[IRonMaN]

They share the machine with each other.  That's why Greta can't get through -------- she is trying to fax Bob, but the machine is at Frank's house this week. 😁

[BobKamman]

The fax machines are nowhere near the employees who need the documents that are faxed.  The faxes ar printed out, scanned and then uploaded to the digital file for the taxpayer, or for the department working on the case.