 Internal Fitness Service IRS tax news. Security Summit releases new data security plan to help tax professionals new WISP simplifies complex area. The security summit like the new Justice League saving the world except today's greatest superpower is known as well intended advice. Even when that advice is factually false because like it's still well intended from a certain point of view. So what I told you was true from a certain point of view. A certain point of view? What? Whatever, get out of here with your good intentions and just tell us the truth, you sons bitch. But first an attempt at a joke. Honestly, sometimes it feels like God is just like crapping on the whole world, doesn't it? And we're all just like dust in the wind, man. All we are is dust in the wind, dude. I know, right Phil? That's deep. Dust, wind, dude. That's some deep crap, man. That's what I'm talking about, some deep crap. It's very deep and I have no idea what it. Maybe we're all like connected in some cosmic way all part of one ever evolving, ever progressing divine dump. We are all one. And if the progressiveness we are presently experiencing continues at its current pace, this cosmic universal divine dump of ours is sure to soon exit the cosmic colon. I had a schedule. I hope that doesn't cause the divine cosmic universe any embarrassing problems. That was embarrassing. Mostly for you, Ben. But hey, we can keep partying, right? But whatever, anyways. And I say, hey, Lama, hey, how about a little something, you know, for the effort, you know. So we got that going for us. And he says, oh, there won't be any money. But when you die on your deathbed, you will receive total consciousness. Which is nice. So I got that going for me, which is nice. IR 2022-147, August 9th, 2022, Washington. The security summit partners today unveiled a special new sample security plan designed to help tax professionals, especially those with smaller practices, protect their data and information. The special plan called a written information security or WISP, there's a link to that here, is outlined in a 29-page document that's been worked on by members of the security summit, including tax professionals, software and industry partners, representatives from state tax groups and the IRS. So I do highly recommend taking a look at that and seeing what their advice is to safeguard your data and your client data. Federal law requires all professional tax preparers to create and implement a data security plan. Obviously, you wanna be having a data security plan not just because it's a federal law, but because you wanna be saving your data and the data and information of your clients. So the security summit group, a public-private partnership between the IRS, states and the nation's tax industry, has noted that some tax professionals continue to struggle with developing a written security plan. In response to this need, the summit led by the tax professional working group has spent months developing a special sample document that allows tax professionals to quickly set their focus in developing their own written security plan or possibly just taking that one and modifying it. It sounds like kind of, but in any case, take a look at it, put together your plan. It's best to have a strategy for these kind of things. Again, not just because it's the law, the IRS is telling you to do it, although that could give some added incentive, but because you wanna be safeguarding your clients and your data clearly. So what's the best strategy to do that? Quote, the tax professionals play a critical role in our nation's tax system. In quote, said Carl Campbell, director of IRS return, prepare her office and co-led by the summit tax professional group. Quote, but for many tax professionals, it is difficult to know where to start and when developing a security plan. The summit members work together on this guide to walk tax pros through many considerations needed to create a written information security plan to protect their business and their clients as well as comply with federal law, end quote. Each year, the security summit partners highlight a, quote, protect your clients, protect yourself, end quote, summer campaign aimed at tax professionals. This is the fourth in a series of five tips for this year's effort. These are issued each Tuesday to coincide with a nationwide tax forum which help educate tax professionals on security and other important topics. There are many aspects to running a successful business in the tax preparation industry, including reviewing tax law changes, learning software updates, and managing and training staff. One often overlooked but critical component is creating a WISP plan, quote, there's no way around it for anyone running a tax business. Having a written security plan is a sound business practice and it's required by law, end quote, said Jared Bellow of Drake Software co-led for the Summit Tax Professional Team and incoming chair of the Electronic Tax Administration Advisory Committee, the ETAAC, which is not, that doesn't stand for Extraterrestrial Alcoholic Anonymous Committee, like a drunken extraterrestrial, it's actually stands for the Electronic Tax Administration Committee. So that gets confused often. So I just wanna clarify, quote, the sample provides a starting point for developing your plan, addressing risk considerations for inclusion in an effective plan and provides a blueprint of applicable actions in the event of a security incident, data losses and theft. Security issues for a tax professional can be daunting. The Summit Team worked to make this document as easy to use as possible, including special sections to help tax professionals get to the information they need, quote, we have tried to stay away from complex jargon and phrases so that the document can have meaning to a larger section of the tax professional community, end quote, so hopefully it's in plain English here without the jargon, technical jargon, that's what Campbell said, quote, it is not intended to be the final word in written information security plans, but it is intended to give tax professionals a place to start in understanding and attempting to draft and plan their business, end quote. A security plan should be appropriate to the company's size, scope of activities, complexity and sensitivity of the customer data it handles. So obviously, just like internal controls, you know, the plans you're gonna be putting into place will have to coincide to some degree with what kind of business your personal business is, how large that business is. Are you more centralized in an office? Are you more decentralized with people working in hubs in different areas from home, for example? There is no one-size-fits-all WISP, for example, a sole practitioner can use a more abbreviated and simplified plan than a 10-partner accounting firm which is reflected in the new sample WISP from the security summit group. Once completed, tax professionals should keep their WISP in a format that others can easily read, such as PDF or Word, making the WISP available to employees for training purposes is encouraged. Storing a copy off-site or in the cloud is a recommended best practice in the event of a natural disaster. Additional resources can be found at the items or places in areas below. You got the tax professionals can also get help from security recommendations by reviewing IRS publication for 557 Safeguarding Taxpayer Data. There's a link to that here and small business information security, the fundamentals. There's a link to that here by the National Institute of Standards and Technology. We also have the IRS Identity Theft Central page. There's a link to that. That's for tax pros, individuals and businesses have important details as well. You got Publication 5293 Data Security Resource Guide for tax professionals and there's a link to that. It provides a compilation, it's a compilation document of data theft information available on irs.gov, irs.gov. Otherwise known as irs.gov, v for victory over tax information. Also, you thought we were done, but no, there's more links. You got tax professionals should stay connected to the IRS through subscription to eNews for tax professionals. That's what we're taking a look at often times here. And you got their social media. So don't miss one single tweet from the IRS. I don't follow their tweets, so you don't have to. I mean, you can do what you want, I'm just saying. But you can follow them on social media. The IRS also recommends tax professionals create a data theft response plan, which includes contacting the IRS stakeholder liaison for to report a theft. So if you want a link to the, there's a link here to the contacting the IRS stakeholder liaison. There's multiple with an S, there's multiple liaisons. Anyways, there's links to all that stuff here. Those are linked to this in the description.