THE IRS AND "SOCIAL MEDIA"

I am not a fan of or a participant in “social media”.

As I have said in the past, the last thing I would ever do is join Spacebook or My Face. Why on earth would I want to make my private and personal information available to the great unwashed masses? If I want to share pictures or videos with friends and family I will use email!

While I am no longer looking for clients for my tax practice, even if I were I would not use Spacebook as a marketing tool. That is what a website is for.

I am, however, a twit. I joined Twitter to promote my writings and to use it as a resource for tax information for the BUZZ and for my personal education. I follow a small and select group of fellow tax bloggers, non-blogging tax professionals and the IRS (see below).

Believe me I have absolutely no interest in hearing what someone’s precoucious 6 year old just said or did. And I don’t give the proverbial rat’s hind quarters where certain twits happen to be every hour of the day.

Hey, I don’t even have a cellphone!

The Internal Revenue Service, however, has embraced social media, and has several social media and mobile technology tools that provide tax information to the public, including tax refund information.

www.irs.gov -

The best source of federal tax information of any kind is the actual IRS website. Here you can access tax forms, instructions and publications, find out about your refund, sign up to receive email alerts and newsletters, and lots of other stuff.

IRS2Go -

This app, available for such Apple and Android devices as iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, allows taxpayers to access information about the status of their tax refund as well as tax tips and updates to help with tax planning and preparation.

YouTube -

The IRS has its own YouTube channel with short videos on tax information available in English, American Sign Language, and a variety of foreign languages.

Twitter -

You can follow the IRS, and the Taxpayer Advocate Service, on Twitter for tax-related announcements and news.

· @IRSnews - http://twitter.com/irsnews: IRS news and helpful information,
· @IRStaxpros - http://twitter.com/irstaxpros: IRS news and guidance for tax pros,
· @IRSenEspanol - http://twitter.com/irsenespanol: News and information in Spanish, and
· @YourVoiceatIRS - http://twitter.com/yourvoiceatirs: Taxpayer Advocate Service.

You can also follow individual IRS employees for more local information. For example, I follow Dianne Besunder (@DianneIRS), the IRS Media Relations Specialist for New York State, at http://twitter.com/#!/DianneIRS.

Facebook -

I have absolutely no clue what the IRS has a Facebook page when you can go directly to the IRS website for whatever you need. You can “friend” the IRS, I suppose.

Audio Podcasts

The IRS has audio podcasts with information on tax related topics available through iTunes and on the IRS web site. Click here.

TTFN

PS- Sorry for the above spacing FU - it has been very frustrating trying to fix it, and a huge waste of valuable time, with no luck!