Update – IRS information service lines closed
Late Thursday, March 26, the IRS closed the Practitioner Priority Service hotline, the e-Services Help Desk and the Centralized Authorization File (CAF) office because they have limited staff available to work. 

To help you answer questions
Understanding how important it is to keep staff safe, the unfortunate effect of closing those hotlines is that it’s now more difficult for CPAs to file tax returns.  AICPA’s Tax Policy & Advocacy Team is pushing Treasury and IRS to extend the relief to all types of filers and the different filings, including information returns and exempt organization returns, in addition to the already-announced April 15th deadline extension to July 15.  The AICPA is also pushing for the relief to apply to all types of taxes (including Q2 estimated tax payments and excise taxes). 

You can find the state tax filing relief chart is at this link – it is updated daily.

The IRS posted FAQs on its website this week about the filing and payment relief.

Accounting as an Essential Service
Finally, the AICPA sent a letter to ask Treasury Secretary Mnuchin to deem public accounting as an “essential service” by the federal government, similar to what many state governors have already done for shelter-in-place orders.