IRS Individual Online Account: What US Expats Can Access

The IRS Individual Online Account at IRS.gov gives taxpayers access to their tax records, payment history, transcripts, and some correspondence, and US expats can use it from abroad. Creating an account requires identity verification through ID.me, which in turn requires a US mobile phone number and a US government-issued ID, and many expats run into problems because they no longer have a US phone number. If you can set up the account, you can view your account transcript, wage and income transcript, and record of account, which is useful for confirming that past returns were received and processed by the IRS. The online account also lets you request a payment plan, respond to certain IRS notices, and check the status of a refund. Expats who cannot complete the online verification due to phone or address issues can request transcripts by mail using Form 4506-T, though mail delivery to foreign addresses is slower and sometimes unreliable.