Electronic Signatures

[Terry D EA]

Does anyone know if the IRS has any issues with electronic signatures on the 8879 or storing signature forms electronically and getting rid of the paper. Currently looking at a Topaz signature pad to work with Drake. Give me a bit of a break here, I am a first time Drake user and am very impressed with all of the functionality. I just discovered how easy the doc manager works and how I can add client documents to the return just as I would in a paper file. I am assuming this is an accepted practice by the IRS. Comments please.

[Catherine]

Electronic signatures and electronic records are now acceptable.  It seems beyond stupid that they would allow an electronic signature - and then make you print the thing to paper and store it in a file cabinet.  Then again, we *are* talking about gov't rules....

[Yardley CPA]

Here's some guidance from the IRS:

https://www.irs.gov/uac/new-electronic-signature-guidance-for-the-irs-efile-signature-authorization

 

[jklcpa]

Terry, this is slightly off-topic, but did you know that you can also save your Word and Excel files directly to the DDM directory and folder for that client, and you can do the same thing with pdf documents the client sends to you. You can also print any document using a pdf printer and save it there as well, such as email correspondence.

Sorry for the hijack.

[Terry D EA]

Hey no problem at all!! I did learn that this morning and as crazy as it sounds, I am ecstatic that I can do this and get rid of some of the paper. I realize that I am behind the times a bit and sometimes it is hard to teach an old dog new tricks. I also agree with Catherine on the stupid idea of requiring paper and electronic copies but like she said, we are dealing with the IRS.