How to fax the IRS

What the IRS accepts by fax

The IRS publishes fax numbers for particular forms, and some of its letters print a fax number for your reply. When a form’s instructions give only a mailing address, mail it: faxing it to an unrelated IRS number isn’t an official way to file it.

Forms 2848 and 8821: authorizations

Both forms go to the IRS unit that records authorizations, and the fax number depends on where the taxpayer lives:

• 855-214-7519 for Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia and West Virginia.
• 855-214-7522 for Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Washington, Wisconsin and Wyoming.
• 855-772-3156 for APO and FPO addresses, US territories and taxpayers living abroad. The IRS also lists 304-707-9785 for faxes sent from outside the United States.

Sign by hand. On a faxed Form 2848 or 8821 the IRS accepts only a handwritten signature: digital, electronic and typed signatures aren’t valid for these forms by fax. Print the form, sign it in ink, then scan or photograph it.

Send it once. The IRS asks you not to send a duplicate, and not to submit a form online if you’ve already faxed it. Its processing-status page currently shows these forms being processed about three business days after receipt.

If you checked line 4 (an authorization for a specific use), fax the form to the IRS office handling that matter rather than to the numbers above.

Form SS-4: an EIN by fax

If your entity’s legal home, main place of business or main office is in a US state or in Washington, DC, fax Form SS-4 to 855-641-6935. If it has none of those in a state or DC, for example because it’s based in a US territory or abroad, fax 855-215-1627 from inside the United States or 304-707-9471 from outside it.

FaxTonic sends faxes but can’t receive them, so the IRS can’t fax your EIN back to FaxTonic. Leave the return fax number blank. The IRS’s internal manual says that without a return fax number, the confirmation letter comes by mail in about two weeks.

Apply only once for each entity: the IRS warns that using more than one method can produce more than one EIN.

Forms 8918 and 8806

Material advisors send Form 8918 to the IRS Office of Tax Shelter Analysis at 1-844-253-5607, a number reserved for this form and its attachments. The instructions limit a fax to 100 pages and ask for a cover sheet showing:

• “Subject: Form 8918”;
• the sender’s name, title, phone number and street address;
• the material advisor’s name;
• the date and the number of pages, cover sheet included.

Leave identification numbers such as an EIN or a Social Security number off the cover sheet. The IRS also asks for one signed Form 8918 per fax, and says it won’t send a fax confirmation, so keep your own record of the transmission.

FaxTonic’s free cover page handles most of this: put “Form 8918” in the subject, your name and phone in the sender fields, and your title, street address and the material advisor’s name in the note. It prints the date and the page count, cover page included, by itself. A FaxTonic fax can have up to 20 pages, so a longer filing can’t go in a single FaxTonic fax.

For Form 8806, an IRS notice says the form can no longer be mailed and must be faxed to 844-249-6232. The IRS has since marked that notice as historical, so confirm on the Form 8806 page before you send.

Replying to an IRS notice or letter

Many IRS letters print a fax number for your reply, and that’s the number to use. For a CP2000 notice, the IRS lists one fax number per processing center and asks you to use the one shown on your notice. For letters 5263C, 6042C and 6217C, it says a fax is processed faster and that a fax machine or an online fax service both work.

Fax or mail, not both: the IRS asks you not to mail a reply you’ve already faxed.

The IRS suggests reading an online fax service’s privacy and security policies first. FaxTonic deletes your document as soon as the fax is delivered, and after 24 hours at the latest: see the privacy policy.

Identity verification letters, such as those in the CP5071 series or Letter 4883C, are handled online, by phone or in person, not by fax. The identity theft affidavit, Form 14039, can be faxed to the number above or to the one on your notice. The IRS asks for a cover sheet marked “Confidential”: write it in the subject of FaxTonic’s cover page, and tick the option that prints a confidentiality notice.

Forms that don’t go by fax

• Change of address, Forms 8822 and 8822-B: the forms give mailing addresses only.
• Copy of a tax return, Form 4506: mailed, with a fee for each return.
• Transcript request, Form 4506-T: it can be faxed to the number in the form’s chart for the state you lived in when that return was filed, but the transcript itself is mailed to your address of record.
• Form 4506-C is for lenders and other participants in the IRS income verification service, who fax it with their own approved cover sheet.

How to send an IRS fax with FaxTonic

1. Fill in the form and sign it. For Forms 2848 and 8821, sign in ink on paper.
2. Scan it, or photograph each page flat and in good light. FaxTonic takes PDF, JPEG, and PNG files, up to 4 MB once prepared for faxing and 20 pages per fax.
3. Open FaxTonic and add your file. The cover page is free and on by default: add your name, a subject such as the form number, and a phone number the IRS can call you on.
4. Choose the United States, enter the fax number from the table above or from your notice, and check the total: $1.49 a page, cover page free.
5. Pay by card. Your status page shows when the IRS’s machine confirms delivery: keep it, or a screenshot of it, as your record of sending.

If the fax doesn’t go through, FaxTonic refunds you automatically: in full if the number was never dialled, or minus $0.30 + 2.9% if the call was made. See the refund policy.