IRS extends business accounts to partnerships, nonprofits, gov'ts

The Internal Revenue Service has expanded its Business Tax Accounts, offering the online self-service platform to partnerships, tax-exempt organizations, and federal, state, local and Indian tribal governments.

The newly eligible entities join sole proprietors, S corporations and C corporations that are already able to access the platform. The expansion supports the agency's ongoing service improvement effort by broadening digital access to more segments of the business community.

"By opening the Business Tax Account to partnerships, tax-exempts and other organizations, we're giving millions more entities secure, convenient access to their tax information," said IRS CEO Frank Bisignano in a statement Monday. "Digital access will reduce the burden on these taxpayers because they no longer will be limited to paper and phone interactions to perform simple tasks with the IRS."

The IRS introduced Business Tax Accounts in October 2023 as a way for companies to view and track their taxes. It later expanded them in December 2023, giving individual partners of partnerships and individual shareholders of S corps access to the accounts.

The Business Tax Account is a secure, centralized platform that allows eligible users to manage their federal tax responsibilities online. Through the BTA, users and designated officials can view tax balances, make payments and see payment history. They can also download certain digital notices and view eligible transcripts, such as payroll and income. They can also request a tax compliance check, as well as see the business name and address on file with the IRS.

Tax professionals have been helping their clients deal with their taxes this filing season amid the changes in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which include a number of provisions that impact businesses.

"The biggest impact on our client base has been the revisions to the IRC Section 174 expenses, and determining what they want to do with that," said Zack Leder, a tax partner at Bennett Thrasher, a Top 75 Firm based in Atlanta that recently released its Top 10 Tax Tips for Businesses Filing in 2026. "Previously you had to capitalize certain R&D expenditures and software development costs. With the passage of the OB3, you get to reverse out what you had done previously on the domestic side. For clients who are in a profitable position, most of them are taking and reversing it all out in the first year. But we have a lot of startup technology companies that tend to lose money early on and we're trying to figure out the best strategy."

The expanded Business Tax Accounts will give taxpayers and tax professionals more information about their tax filings.

"That's going to give taxpayers easier access to their records to see what's going on and what the issue happens to be with the returns," said Tom O'Saben, director of tax content and government relations at the National Association of Tax Professionals. "I would also hope that we'd start to see some payroll records, 941s and 940s, in those business accounts. I applaud the IRS getting these business accounts up and running. What it's really going to do is help the taxpayer, or the tax professional if they've got a power of attorney on file, to be able to see exactly what the issue happens to be without having to talk with an assistor. Hopefully it will be expanded shortly to also include payroll issues, which always seem to be the No. 1 thing that pops up first when it comes to entities, as in partnership audit circumstances, and being able to see that information and prepare accordingly before you meet with the IRS."