Activate Your IRS Account

Establish an IRS login before you need it or someone else does!

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I have been writing about Cybersecurity for the Mortgage Industry, and in my first post, I explained a myriad of problems trying to get a home loan. One of the issues was that neither the bank nor I could get a copy of my tax transcripts from the IRS. Anyone in the US knows who that is.

If you are not in the U.S. replace IRS with whatever your federal tax authority is if they offer login services to view an account. Other types of governments accounts may be susceptible to a similar fate such as was the case with the Texas Employee Retirement System.

I have never been asked for tax transcripts by other banks, but the one I wrote about in my first post required them to finalize the supposedly approved loan. [Side note: Never trust a bank until you have the final paperwork in hand. Especially if you are a business owner.] I read that tax transcripts may also be required when applying for financial aid. When the bank could not get my transcripts using the appropriate forms after three attempts, they told me I could download my transcripts from the IRS website and provide a copy.

I jumped through a number of hoops as I explained to try to get my tax transcripts. By the way, the large credit union that services US Armed Forces never did refund me for that hotel room as promised. Not that I honestly expected it after the whole experience.

At any rate, one simple thing could have helped me with some of the issues at the very end. I could have simply downloaded my transcripts from the IRS if I had set up my IRS account at a point in time prior to the whole fiasco, instead of trying to find an office with appointments available in the middle of a pandemic. In addition to making my life easier when it came to the loan, there are some security reasons why you might want to do this now.

Activate your account here (at the time of this writing):

https://www.irs.gov/individuals/online-services-account-activation

Should the link change, find how to set up an account at https://irs.gov

If you wait until you need your account and are in a hurry later to perform some action, you may experience delays. Not only did this process block me once, but it also blocked me twice more after I got the paperwork in the mail. One was my fault, the other was not. I waited to write this blog post until I got it sorted out. I was bracing for another trip to an IRS office if required. Luckily, my third attempt was successful.

As I explained in my other post when I initially tried to activate my account, I could not create the account immediately online. The system said it would mail a code and would only send it to the address on the tax forms. That process takes 8–10 days. I had moved. Luckily, I still had mail forwarding in place, but the mail would need to be forwarded across the country. I only had three days to close on the loan to get the house in time. That put me in the jam I was in.

Question to the IRS on the security of this process: How does this work if someone has moved and used their home address for taxes and it is past the point where they have mail forwarding set up by USPS? In that case, I suppose someone would need to go to the USPS website and re-set up forwarding if that is possible once it runs out. It would cost a fee at that point to extend the forwarding service.

But if a person doesn’t know that this letter will be mailed to their old address before they start setting up their IRS account? They may inadvertently trigger a letter with a code that is supposed to prove their identity getting sent to their old address before they can re-establish forwarding. Then who knows who gets their letter with the code that is supposed to prove their identity?

Also, why does the IRS not recognize a common address symbol — a pound sign (#). This has caused me problems more than once. I didn’t notice it got stripped by Intuit when I submitted my taxes and when entered at the IRS for other purposes things broke. At least tell people to remove the # when filling out forms or submitting information online. However, it seems like that is something that should work as it’s common in so many addresses.

My other question is why, when I called in, did the person on the phone say there was “a problem with my address she needed to fix.” What kind of problem? Was my address wrong? Who changed it and why? If nothing else people should go through this process with the IRS to ensure their address on file is correct. If the process breaks maybe other people will find there is a mysterious problem with their address in the system.

So I started wondering how people are supposed to get information from the IRS after they move because their address is incorrect until they file taxes again. But of course. There is a form for that.

Can anyone fill it out? How is it validated? I couldn’t see or validate my address online. What’s the security around this change of address process? What’s to prevent someone from abusing this process by filling out a form, and then setting up the account login for themselves?

And that is why everyone should go set up their IRS account now. Set it up before you need it — and before someone else does. I’m not sure what happens if someone else got into your IRS account and what they would do with it. In my case, as a business owner, I generally owe money rather than get a refund. If someone wants to pay my taxes, feel free.

After I got my tax transcripts in person, I continued to pursue setting up my IRS account. The first letter came, and I tried to enter the code. But it didn’t work! I was entering it within the correct timeframe. At the end of the process, it sent me to a page where it stated I would be receiving yet another letter.

Luckily, I was not in a rush to get into the account this time. I waited for the other letter but in the meantime, I was dealing with a lot of house issues as I wrote about in this blog post:

I got the next letter in the mail and then forgot to deal with it right away. I had a lot on my plate. The code expired. I requested yet another letter.

I received the third letter just now. Finally. It worked!

I’ve explained a few reasons why you should go set up your IRS account today. The IRS also has a page warning of various types of alerts and scams related to their services:

I hope that helps someone else preemptively stave off the problems I had related to my IRS account.

Follow for updates.

Teri Radichel | © 2nd Sight Lab 2021

About Teri Radichel:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
⭐️ Author: Cybersecurity Books
⭐️ Presentations: Presentations by Teri Radichel
⭐️ Recognition: SANS Award, AWS Security Hero, IANS Faculty
⭐️ Certifications: SANS ~ GSE 240
⭐️ Education: BA Business, Master of Software Engineering, Master of Infosec
⭐️ Company: Penetration Tests, Assessments, Phone Consulting ~ 2nd Sight Lab

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