The IRS is changing the way in which it transmits tax transcripts for clients to tax professionals, Accounting Today and CPA Practice Advisor reported.

As of April 8, tax professionals need to call the IRS’s Practitioner Priority Service (PPS) to request transcripts to be deposited into their secure object repository (SOR). While PPS has been the main avenue for such requests, other IRS toll-free lines will no longer offer the SOR as a delivery method.

The change is meant to improve security.

"As part of the IRS's effort to continue combatting identity theft and protecting taxpayers' personal information, we're making changes that will impact how tax professionals receive transcripts," the IRS said in an email to tax professionals.

Tax professionals will now need to pass the current required authentication and to verify their Short Identification. The Short ID is a unique eight- to 10-character alphanumeric code that's systemically assigned by the system when an IRS account is established. This Short ID is visible when tax pros log into their e-Services SOR. If the tax pro's identity can't be verified, taxpayer transcripts will only be mailed to the address of record.

The PPS assistors who work for the IRS can't resolve issues with either ID.me identity proofing or the status of an ID.me account. The IRS uses ID.me to authenticate taxpayer identities for taxpayer and tax professional accounts.