5071C IDV: phone asst. no longer available, online not working either

[barnaba]

I received a 5071C letter (like many other people on here) and under normal circumstances I’d just be more annoyed than anything but – on top of everything that is going on – there no longer is a way to actually verify my identity. FWIW, my state tax refund has already been not only processed but deposited to my checking account a couple of weeks ago.

1. Online verification apparently requires a CURRENT loan or credit card account number.
Any loans I may have had are all paid off. I have not had an open CC account since cancelling and closing them in 2016/2017. I have tried using the account numbers of closed CCs with no success.

2. The phone number from the letter no longer works. I mean I could understand if it was the IRS basic customer service or the WMR phone number that were no longer available, but the IDV service number should be the last one to become unavailable as it put the taxpayer in a state of limbo

3. All IRS Taxpayer Assistance Centers are now closed nationwide, for obvious reasons.

Under normal circumstances I would put up with the delay and the rest of the nonsense but I am from New York state and my area is about 72 hours away from turning into something straight out of a horror movie. Unless you live here and are exposed to what is going on, you cannot possible understand or even imagine how bad the situation is. We already ran out of normal hospital beds yesterday, every hospital is setting up tents in their parking lots to treat patients, and no one even questions why those huge refrigerated trucks blocked by canopies are parked outside the hospitals.

I have a feeling that since the IRS verification phone number no longer works and all the TACs are closed, the IRS might not actually be enforcing strict IDV regulations and is simply using DOB/NAME/SSN match for any verification. Then, once the country and the world get through this crisis, the IRS will use their massive enforcement powers to look for and severely punish the ones who defrauded this system.