This week we wrote a letter to state tax administrators, sharing five key suggestions for relieving undue tax administration burdens in the wake of this difficult COVID-19 situation. As explained, “at a time when many people are working from home and should not or cannot go to post offices or banks, a business-as-usual attitude for tax administration would be inexcusable.” The five suggestions:

1. Postpone deadlines for tax filing and payment. The federal government and many states have already taken this needed step. When many Americans, including business tax professionals and tax administrators and their staffs, are fearing for their own health and unable, prohibited or unadvised to leave their own house, this is not the time for pulling records and preparing tax filings.

2. Waive requirements to file hard copy, notarized, and/or wet-signature documents. Waive requirements to mail documents by certified mail. Allow automated-clearing-house (ACH) electronic transfers of funds instead of requiring hard checks. In a time of social distancing and shelter-in-place orders, it is dangerous to require that business representatives go outside to banks or Post Offices, stand in line, and purchase services from one particular provider. While the US Postal Service (USPS) has valiantly endeavored to keep all post offices operating and mail delivery uninterrupted, new reports on the enormous financial difficulties of the USPS and the growing impact of the virus on the USPS’s public-facing workforce surely give all of us pause. Digital signatures and electronic document delivery, and electronic forms of payment, are widely adopted, affordable, secure, and instantaneous. It is time for tax authorities to dispense with – or suspend – the requirements of physical copies, wet signatures, notarization, physical checks and mailing. Furthermore, tax agencies and hearing tribunals should adopt temporary procedures to either automatically acknowledge receipt of electronic documents or waive stringent proof of delivery in situations in which missing a deadline would preclude a taxpayer from obtaining further review of agency action.

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