Twenty to eight on a Thursday night in February. The owner's personal cell lights up with a photo: a client's Social Security card, a W-2 under it, and the words “for my return.” Nobody asked for it. Now it sits on a phone that also holds family photos and a dozen group chats.
Clients text. That won't change, and most of what a firm sends them by text is fine. A few messages need a signed consent first, and a few should never go by text at all. This post sorts them, with a link to each rule. None of this is legal advice; it is what the rules say, with links so you can read them too. Your state board and your firm's counsel have the final word before your office changes how it texts.
Two sets of rules sit behind every text
Two separate rules apply, and they ask different questions. The TCPA asks whether this person agreed to get texts from you. Section 7216 of the Internal Revenue Code asks whether you may use their tax return information for this purpose. A text can pass one and fail the other.
A reminder about a missing 1099 passes both once the client has agreed to texts. A text offering bookkeeping to last year's return clients needs a yes under each rule. The §7216 yes is a consent the client signed.
The TCPA: a yes before any text
The TCPA's rule is section 64.1200 of the FCC's regulations, and marketing sits in its paragraph (a)(2). A text that “includes or introduces an advertisement or constitutes telemarketing”, sent with an autodialer or an artificial or prerecorded voice, needs the person's “prior express written consent”. That is a signed written agreement, and an e-signature counts. It names the phone number, authorizes those messages and comes with a clear disclosure.
Service texts, such as a note that a 1099 is still missing, sit lower. The safe reading is that service texts require at least the client's prior express consent. So the simplest form carries two boxes, a first for service texts and a second for marketing. Each client ticks what they want.
Consent can also end. The rule lets a person revoke it “using any reasonable method”. Answering with STOP, UNSUBSCRIBE or one of the other words the rule names is enough. The firm honors it “within a reasonable time not to exceed ten business days”. Day to day, the number comes off the list the moment that reply lands. Our own SMS terms show one way to word the opt-out.
Timing counts for marketing. Paragraph (c)(1) bars telephone solicitation to a home number “before the hour of 8 a.m. or after 9 p.m.”, local time where the person is. Send the season kickoff mid-morning. Some states set their own hours; this post didn't check them, so look yours up.
Your number is registered before texts go through
Apart from the law, US carriers run A2P 10DLC registration for texts sent from a local business number. Each firm registers its brand, then its use, which carriers call a campaign. Until both are approved, texts from that number may not reach anyone.
Plan for it in the fall, not in January. Brand approval takes from a day to several business days. Extra vetting can add up to seven business days, then the campaign is reviewed and carriers take a few more days to pick it up. Budget weeks, not days. The legal name and EIN you enter must match the IRS record exactly, so copy them from the IRS letter that assigned your EIN.
What §7216 counts as tax return information
The rule itself is short. A preparer may not use or disclose tax return information for anything but preparing the return, unless a regulation allows it or the client consented in writing beforehand (26 CFR 301.7216-3).
The definition is wide: “any information, including, but not limited to, a taxpayer's name, address, or identifying number, which is furnished in any form or manner for, or in connection with, the preparation of a tax return” (26 CFR 301.7216-1). It includes what you work out from that information and what third parties send you.
Read that twice. A return client's name, email and phone number are tax return information. So the question is never only whether you can text this person. It is also what you are using their details for.
The penalties are real. Under §7216, misuse is a misdemeanor with up to a year and a $1,000 fine. Under §6713, the civil penalty is $250 per use or disclosure, with a yearly cap of $10,000. The IRS covers both in its Section 7216 FAQ.
Texts that are part of preparing the return
Most of what a tax office texts in season is the work itself. The reminder that names the two documents still missing. The note confirming Thursday's drop-off. The text that says the return moved to review, or that it is ready to sign. These are part of preparing the return, so §7216 asks no extra consent for them.
The TCPA still applies. The client's yes to service texts covers these, which is why that box sits first on the form.
Keep them about the work, not the figures. “Your return is ready to sign” is a stage. “You're getting $3,140 back” is return information on a lock screen, and it belongs in the meeting or behind a sign-in.
What you may send without written consent
One carve-out matters for reaching your own clients: 26 CFR 301.7216-2(n). A preparer may keep a separate list of the clients whose returns it prepared. The list holds only names, mailing addresses, email addresses, phone numbers, entity type (“individual” or the type of business entity) and the return form number.
That list may be used “solely to contact the taxpayers on the list for the purpose of providing tax information and general business or economic information or analysis for educational purposes, or soliciting additional tax return preparation services.” Using it to offer any other service or product is off limits. Nor can it go to anyone else, except when the firm itself is sold.
In plain terms, these can go to last year's return clients on that list with no §7216 consent. The TCPA still decides which texting box each one needs (the table at the end shows which):
- The season kickoff: your organizer is ready, here is the link, here are this year's hours.
- A reminder that the extension deadline is two weeks out.
- A short note on a law change, written as general tax information.
- An offer to prepare a return they took elsewhere last year, such as their business return.
One more limit: pick who gets what using only the items on that list. Income, refunds and other details from the return never decide who gets a text.
What needs a signed §7216 consent
Anything outside that carve-out needs a §7216 consent the client signed before you use their information. That covers:
- A text offering bookkeeping, payroll, advisory or any service other than return preparation to return clients.
- Review requests. They are not one of the purposes the list rule allows, so they go only to return clients who consented.
- Matching return clients' phone numbers or emails to Google or Meta, for conversions or ad audiences. That is a disclosure.
The consent has its own conditions in 301.7216-3. It “must be knowing and voluntary”, and “conditioning the provision of any services on the taxpayer's furnishing consent will make the consent involuntary.” One document can't cover both a use and a disclosure. Each use or disclosure is named, and a consent to offer other services names each type of service.
A workable way to collect it: send the consent with the engagement letter as its own optional document, never as a condition of the engagement. Its exact wording and format are for your firm and its counsel; this post doesn't cover them. And because those texts sell something, the TCPA's written consent applies to them too.
What never goes in a text
Four things stay off a text, consent or no consent:
- Social Security numbers, the client's or a dependent's.
- Bank account numbers.
- Balances: what a client owes the IRS, the state or your firm.
- Refund amounts, and any other figure from the return.
A text shows on lock screens, on shared family phones and in backups, and it stays there. It is closer to a postcard than a sealed letter. Your text says something is ready and gives the link; the figures stay behind a sign-in or across the desk.
When a client texts a Social Security number anyway
It will happen, usually at night. Don't reply with the number, and don't forward the text to a coworker. Answer with a saved reply: thanks, please send it through the upload form instead, here is the link. Then delete the text from the phone.
This is far easier when clients text the firm instead of a person. A number of the firm's own, with an inbox the staff share, means the photo lands where the office can answer it. A preparer's personal cell stays out of it. AccrueNest is one way to set that up. Texts leave from your firm's line, replies land in a shared inbox, and the upload link opens a form with a place for each document.
The whole list in one table
| Text | What it needs first |
|---|---|
| Missing-document reminder, stage update, appointment reminder | The client's yes to service texts |
| Invoice reminder with the pay link, no amount | The client's yes to service texts |
| Deadline reminder or tax news to last year's return clients | A yes to texts, sent from the (n) list only |
| Season kickoff, or an offer to prepare another return | Written consent to marketing texts, from the (n) list only |
| Bookkeeping, payroll or advisory offer to return clients | Written consent to marketing texts and a signed §7216 consent |
| Review request to a return client | A yes to texts and a signed §7216 consent |
| Social Security numbers, bank numbers, balances, refund amounts | Never by text |
AccrueNest
AccrueNest sets up phones, texting, organizers and marketing for small US accounting firms, from solo enrolled agents to ten-person CPA offices. These posts write down what that work teaches us.
