And there’s more! Yesterday the Tax Department issued Notice N-20-5 which states that, at least for now, the Department will only be accepting digital signatures “until July 15, 2020” and that the Department will then revisit the issue to “determine whether there is a continuing need to allow for the acceptance of digital signatures due to the COVID-19 State emergency.”
The NYS Society of CPAs has been tirelessly advocating to permanently suspend the “wet signature” requirement for New York State tax returns and this temporary measure furthers that goal for the short term.
We certainly agree with the extension and have appreciated the efficiency of being able to digitally sign just about everything other than a Power of Attorney, but this begs a few questions: Did we really need a pandemic for this? Isn’t the “wet signature” requirement a bit antiquated? And should this be made permanent, at least in some capacity?
