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Maybe, he'll auction it off!

I'd prefer someone who wants to improve the operations of the agency rather than abolish it.

I am happy. I am not sure the new guy will be better but I was not happy with the Werfel. Not political, just felt like he was not capable of getting the IRS to the place where they could be counted on to do their job efficiently. And I have always believed that he did not respect the professional preparer community. Seemed like he was always pointing the blame for the fraud issues at someone else and then imposing new rules of practice that the bad guys aren't going to follow anyways. And I am happy I won't see any more of his dang cat videos on LinkedIn. Tom Longview, TX

Jabba the Hut

Heaven help us.... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Long

Commisioner Werfel resigned Monday with 2 years left in his term. The new administration ordered all employees working from home back into the office. They also imposed a hiring freeze and all open job offers were withdrawn. We'll see what happens

... on one of those authenticators. Hey! I'm in double digits! Might be a while though before I earn a "k" after my post count

2 seconds off? Then there should be a 6.66...% (2/30ths) chance you won't get into your program in any given attempt! TexTaxToo might have something to say about that!!

That seems nigh impossible. I just checked my phone and computer and they are two seconds off.

Yes. Mirror codes, to the second (as long as internal clocks are identical). My original intent was to simply have some standby authenticator available in the event my cellphone went to zero or worse. Everyone will have differing security concerns. If not on the same computer, then maybe on another. (possibly snaping a photo of the QRCode and installing on a second cellphone?) As long as there's a backup plan. In my case - now knowing I have one gives me calm. Enjoy tax season, all!

This has not been updated for TY2024. There is now a field at the top of Schedule 1 for non-taxable amounts reported on a 1099-K - there is no need to report it and back it out. By "Block", I assume you mean the company formerly known as "Square" which runs the "Cash App" payment app. If the app is used for gifts or reimbursements among family and friends they shouldn't even issue a 1099-K. But if they do, or if these were for sales of personal items at a loss, use the new field: https://www.irs.gov/instructions/i1040gi#en_US_2024_publink1000131906

Authenticators are implemented with a hashing algorithm. They simply hash a "secret code" with a counter derived from the current time to get the 6-digit passcode. The "secret code" is obtained from the QR code or the equivalent string when you setup a site. Any authenticator initialized with that code will produce the same passcode at the same time. It doesn't even need to be connected to the internet as long as the clock is accurate. For those technically inclined, you can google or wiki TOTP (time-based one time password) for details. For that reason, you should treat the "secret codes" with care, as anyone who has them can set up an authenticator to mimic yours. Pasting them into a Word document named "Authenticator codes" is probably not a good idea.

No, that's not what I meant. I'm sure people have not filed for a number of reasons. What I am saying is I don't see what the downside is to filing now is since the information is already available and it's looking more and more like it's going to be required.

I'm getting dizzy with all the yes-no-yes-no-yes-no!

My old phone died and I had to rush to get a new one. I have the authenticator on the phone for a few reasons. I called support for help to renew (or whatever the term would be) access for the program and payroll. Although I was on hold for probably 30 minutes, the tech was very helpful and knowledgeable. I have the authenticator on my desktop now and am quite happy to not have to scramble to find my phone every time to access the software. I didn't expect to prefer this option.

I use a browser based authenticator. It completely eliminates the 2F aspect of this. One of many reasons these laws are asinine.

I'm surprised that works. So you can use either authenticator and they both show the same code at the same time?

Also, I have a password on my authenticator, so they'd need to guess that to even get the code. And my authenticator is an extension in one of my browsers, so they'd have to find it first.

I haven't filed because I didn't get around to it, and then when they said I didn't have to I thought maybe I would never have to and that would just be one less thing to do. Not that I care about reporting the information, I just get tired of filling out ridiculous government forms.

True. I agree. One thing I'd wish for is if we could get rid of the program timing out and requiring us to log in again.

Oh but I can! Both the phone and desktop authenticator codes are mirror images of one another. I accessed ATX both ways. I wouldn't have offered this up had it not worked... And in my case no one to be compromised by as it's just me, myself and I.

It probably is less secure, especially if you put a shortcut to your authenticator on your desktop, but any hacker would also need to break your ATX password, and 3 wrong guesses would lock them out and require a password reset, so I'm not worried about it.

More convenient and maybe OK for a desktop, but isn't it somewhat less secure to have it on the same machine if that machine is compromised. I also see this setup as less secure on a laptop that travels with the preparer. If the laptop is lost or stolen, the MFA is there on the same machine as the tax software, or whatever program or internet site the MFA is protecting.

No because you can't have two different authenticator setups. The last one you do will be the only one that works. But I do agree that a desktop authenticator is superior to a phone based one because you can copy/paste the 6 digit code into ATX.

Nope! I, for one, am not going there. In a big enough state of confusion without all that.