Every year I’ve filed my US taxes by mail. This time I’m trying to do it electronically, mostly because I want the 3rd stimulus check that I never received to be deposited electronically.
Anyway, of course nothing tech related goes smoothly for me. I’m using one of the free services listed (TaxSlayer) and I get to the point of filling in my phone number. It won’t accept a Taiwan number. When I try to skip it, the program won’t continue and gives me the message “The IRS requires your phone number to file electronically.”
I’ve seen several posts in the past with Taiwan residents filing their US taxes electronically. How have you done it without a US phone number?
It’s proven to be very useful, at least in the two instances I’ve used it now.
My US credit card company wouldn’t let me log into my account until I reverified myself by text message, and they don’t allow a non-US phone number to do this. Anyway, the card customer service I called was extremely helpful in trying to figure out a workaround and the rep suggested TextNow, which worked like a charm.
Google Voice (voice.google.com) also gives you a US number and supports receiving text messages along with some other handy features like email forwarding of text messages and voicemail transcripts.
That is old. When was the last time you tried it? I’d say for two years now, I’ve been able to check a box ‘nonus spouse’ and efile married filing separate returns.
If they thought they were overrun with people calling due to filing problems before, the IRS wins the award for “most certainly found 1000000x more work to do”
After 25 years in Taiwan, I need an American cell phone number in order to receive verification texts and voice verification messages. Email can’t be used any longer for this.
Google Voice was a non-starter for me because in order to get a Google Voice phone number, you first have to have either a US cell phone number or a US landline phone number already. Duh…
I went with a Skype number. I already had a US based Skype account. That means I created the Skype account while I was in America. That’s important because if you create a Skype account while in Taiwan, you get fucked over by the Taiwanese government by needing to register and adding Skype credit must be done through PCHome, etc. It’s a major pain in the ass, but I digress.
I have already been able to make calls from my Skype account to landline phones and cell phones by buying Skype Credit in blocks of $10.00 for the rare occasions that I require calling a US cell phone or landline phone.
At any rate, I was able to sign up for a Skype number by first choosing the U.S., then choosing the city where I wanted the phone number based. It generated an available number and I signed up for it which will cost me $6.50 USD per month. What do I get for my $6.50 per month?
People in the US can call my local US Skype phone number and it will ring on my mobile phone here in Taiwan for no added cost to them. Voice calls! I tested it and it works perfectly. A pal in Bumfuck Nebraska dialed up my Seattle phone number and it rang here in Taiwan. Voila.
People in the US can send text messages to me via my local US Skype phone number and it will transfer to my mobile phone here in Taiwan for no added cost to them or me. I can also text their cell phones in the US, but the cost is really cheap. I can text up to 160 characters for merely $0.112. Then, if the message is longer than 160 characters, the next 145 continuing characters raises the cost of the text message to $0.224. Still pretty cheap if I ever need to send a SMS. Doubt I will, though. I just need to receive SMS.
My main intended use for this Skype phone number service will be to enable me to receive verification code text messages from my financial institutions before I can move any money around. My financial institutions in the US have now stopped allowing email to be used for receiving the “one-time” verification code due to security concerns. They all now require a US cell phone number in order to receive verification text messages. So, that’s why I’ve now got a US based phone number through Skype.
