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Ext. PublicationMotor Fuels Tax Minute, Episode 75: Power of Attorney – Signatures
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In this week’s episode of Motor Fuels Tax Minute, our hosts discuss signatures on Power of Attorney.
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Detailed Description of Weaver’s Motor Fuels Tax Minute, Episode 75
00:00:00
Leanne: Welcome to Weaver’s Motor Fuels Tax Minute, the vlog where we talk all things motor fuel. Today is the last episode in our Power of Attorney series. And in case anybody was wondering, ‘why did you do a series on the Power of Attorney? It’s not that interesting. Have you run out of things to talk about with motor fuel tax?’ That’s not it at all. The reason that we did it is because we wanted to cover some issues that we have seen when it comes to the Powers of Attorney between us and some of our colleagues here and in other places, we’re seeing and hearing of some kickbacks of Powers of Attorney for all kinds of unusual reasons.
And the one that Kelly is going to talk about today is probably the one that we hear about most commonly, and that is signatures. Wet versus electronic versus stamped. What’s that all about, Kelly? I thought the IRS was accepting electronic signatures, particularly after COVID.
00:00:53
Kelly: Personally, if anyone’s not finding this interesting, I’m a little hurt. But I will say Powers of Attorney are not always the hottest topic.
Exactly what you talked about, Leanne. We have been hearing a lot of kickback that can cause huge delays in a process that’s already being delayed. You don’t want to be on the phone with the IRS for hours, and then have to track down some way to fax them over a Power of Attorney. I don’t know about everyone else, but I personally do not have a fax machine readily available. Not to mention, if you send in a response and you put all this effort into it and you include your Power of Attorney, the IRS might just completely ignore you if you don’t have it correct or if something is missing or you don’t have the right certification. They won’t even reach back out all the time. And that’s not due to them ignoring, they’re just boggled down with work. So, you could send something in, feel really great about it, then hear nothing back, and think everything’s fine. Next thing you know, you get another notice with a higher penalty and interest. So, this topic really does hold a lot of weight.
The one thing that we were surprised about was the switch back to handwritten signatures. And this is very specific to faxing or mailing your Power of Attorney in. If you file a Power of Attorney online, the IRS does have some electronic signature options that are worth looking into. But the IRS will come back and it’s actually a little bit funny because sometimes it will be a wet signature. They’ll just be slightly suspicious of it. Okay, it looks a little too clean, a little too nice, and they’ll send it back. And this just causes an unnecessary delay in the whole process. So, we’ve just been recommending to everyone, including our clients, to put a wet signature on there. That’s the best way to get it accurately over to the IRS.
Also, interesting kind of tying in with it, Form 720s. They are also cracking down on wet signatures, so if you don’t file those electronically, your Form 720 could be rejected if you do not have a wet signature on it.
00:02:44
Leanne: Yeah, that’s a really good point. That’s something we heard about as well. So, if you are still paper filing, make sure you’ve got a wet signature. But it’s so interesting to me that some people’s wet signatures are viewed as electronic.
00:02:55
Kelly: You know, mine never runs into that problem. I’m happy enough that they just accept and move on. But yes, I’ve seen some people have really nice handwriting. They get rejected.
00:03:05
Leanne: For those of you with good handwriting, do a scribble.
Well, that is the last of our Motor Fuels Tax Minute Power of Attorney series. Join us for some new topics in the next few weeks, and we look forward to seeing you soon.