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Filed amended return for client who lives in another city; IRS says they need an original signature on the return

Hello,

I recently filed a 1040X for the 2008 tax year on behalf of a client. This client of mine lives in another city, several hours away, so I prepared the Form 1040X, sent it to them by email, they signed it, then faxed it back to me. I signed it as the preparer and then mailed it in.

A couple of weeks later, both my client and I received a Form 8009, stating that the IRS needs to have an original signature on the amended return in order to process it.

While most of my clients live near me, I also have clients in many different cities around the country. Those clients fax or scan me anything they have signed. There is often not enough time or it is just not practical for them to sign a document and then send it to me by USPS or FedEx for me to sign and send into the IRS. Plus, on numerous occasions, I have filed documents with the IRS where the client's return was copied because they signed something, then faxed it over to me and the document got processed without a problem.

Has anyone encountered this issue before? Did I just get unlucky because the document came to somebody at the IRS who decided to follow every little arcane rule?

I am certain there are people in this group with clients all over the country/world from whom they get documents faxed or scanned to them with a signature on it, and then are able to send on to the IRS without a problem. If I had simply taken the amended return to an IRS office, would I have avoided this issue?

Thanks,

Chris Johnson, EA

Reply to
caj111
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Why not just sign the filing copy and mail it to the taxpayer, and then let them mail it in themselves after they sign?

This solves several problems beyond the one you mention. As a paid preparer, you are supposed to present the return with your signature to the client *before* they sign. Also, why would you want to take responsibility for mailing in a client's tax return? And hopefully you are sending an encrypted version of the unsigned return when you use e-mail.

From Rev. Rul. 78-317:

Section 1.6695-1(b)(1) of the Income Tax Regulations provides that an income tax return preparer shall manually sign the return in the space provided on the return after it is completed and before it is presented to the taxpayer for signature.

-Mark B.

Reply to
Mark Bole

I'm with Mark on this one - WHY are YOU mailing in the client's tax returns? I would never accept that responsibility, though I guess I assume a similar responsibility by e-filing, but that's another issue.

I too have clients all over - some as far away as Hong Kong & Singapore. When I finish with their returns (the ones must go on paper) I sign them, scan them in and e-mail them out to the client with instructions to print, sign and mail direct to the taxing authority.

I am curious about why you have the returns sent back to you for you to mail. Seems like a lot of extra work to me.

Gene E. Utterback, EA, RFC, ABA

Reply to
Gene E. Utterback, EA, RFC, AB

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