Provider Flurry of E-mails

[Edsel]

I heard from the Liason Officer in Nashville yesterday.  She said that the IRS has decided to stop furnishing e-mail addresses of PTIN registrants.  You know, the CD they will sell to anyone for $25 showing all PTIN preparers, phone numbers and addresses.  As of next year, e-mail addresses will not be furnished.  She said since it was electronic-borne, it raised the possibility of identity theft and they decided to discontinue it.

I've been getting at least a dozen every day from people wanting to host for CE credits, other tax-related commerce, etc.  I'm sure some phony ones are included with the flurry.

[ILLMAS]

This doesn't surprise me, I remember when credit card companies would sell customers telephone numbers during the era of telemarketing.  Now for your enjoyment, people taking revenge on telemarketers:

 

Now

[SaraEA]

Our IRS liaison advised us to set up a separate email account we only use for IRS stuff.  Then all the junk from CE providers, scammers, "clients" we never heard of sending us links to their tax docs, etc. will go to that one place.  Check it every so often for legit IRS email--usually nothing more than infrequent reminders to renew PTIN, etc.  Sounds like a plan, except that our current email addresses are already out there and the marketers and thieves already have them.  It is unlikely they will purge their lists, so starting an "IRS only" account will only keep new creeps away.  Same with charities.  A relative who died 10 years ago and who never lived at our address but did have some mail sent here still gets pleas from charities.

[Roberts]

It'll take years for those email addresses to get scrubbed from their databases but at least NEW companies won't get it?

I haven't lived with my parents since 1993 and I still occasionally get solicitations sent to me at their address. The really interesting part is that my parents moved 12 years ago and the companies updated their address for me and it followed to the new house.