Taxpayers who receive certain notices from the IRS and are required to send information to the agency now have the option of submitting that documentation online through IRS.gov.

This new option, announced by the IRS on Feb. 16, allows tax professionals or their clients to electronically upload documents via a secure online portal rather than mailing that paperwork to the IRS, thus reducing time and effort resolving tax issues.

“This capability is another step forward by the IRS to help taxpayers and improve service,” IRS Acting Commissioner Doug O’Donnell said in a statement. “This provides immediate benefits to taxpayers, who have nearly instant confirmation that documents were received by the IRS. In turn, this will dramatically speed up the resolution of issues by removing a time-consuming step in the process. This means people can have their issues resolved much faster, including getting refunds to affected taxpayers faster. We will continue to look at improvements like this as we work to transform the IRS following passage of the Inflation Reduction Act last year.”

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Nine notices will be available for this feature, potentially helping more than 500,000 taxpayers each year who receive these notices, including military personnel serving in combat zone areas and recipients of important credits like the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and Child Tax Credit (CTC).

Taxpayers who receive one of the following notices with the link and access code can choose to upload their documents:

CP04, relating to combat zone status.
CP05A, information request related to a refund.
CP06 and CP06A, relating to the Premium Tax Credit.
CP08, relating to the CTC.
CP09, relating to claiming the EITC.
CP75, relating to the EITC.
CP75a, relating to the EITC.
CP75d, relating to the EITC and other credits.

Taxpayers receiving these notices can respond securely to the IRS online, regardless of whether they have an IRS online account.

IRS IT specialists developed a prototype for the Documentation Upload Tool in 2021. Since then, the IRS has been testing this feature on a limited number of exam-related notices, and 38% of the responses to these notices have used secure electronic communications rather than traditional mail.

Language on the notice informs the taxpayer to, “Send us your documents using the Documentation Upload Tool within 30 days from the date of this notice.” It includes the link and a unique access code.

The taxpayer can open the link in any browser and then input their unique code, their first and last name, and their Social Security, individual taxpayer identification, or employee identification number.
The taxpayer can then securely upload scans, photos, or digital copies of documents (maximum of 15MB per file, up to 40 files).
The taxpayer receives a confirmation that the IRS received their documents, and the IRS employee assigned the case can manage the transmitted documents.

In the future, the IRS plans to expand this capability to dozens of other notices. In addition, the IRS will offer digital correspondence on a variety of other taxpayer interactions. During live interactions such as phone calls with taxpayers, IRS employees will be able to grant upload access by providing the link and unique access code.

For more information, see the Fact Sheet 2023-05, IRS expands secure digital correspondence for taxpayers.