IRS to offer tax filing form in Spanish for the first time

The IRS announced this week that it will be providing the individual income tax return in Spanish for the first time.

The Form 1040 will be available in both English and Spanish for next year’s filing season, when people file their 2020 taxes. The form will also for the first time give taxpayers the ability to indicate if they wish to be contacted by the IRS in a language other than English, the agency said.

Offering the form in Spanish is part of a larger effort from the IRS to reach underserved communities and expand the amount of information available to taxpayers in languages other than English. The agency said that a publication about taxpayers’ rights is now available in 20 languages, and a publication about the general rules for filing an individual income tax return will be available early next year in seven languages.

Many pages on the IRS website are currently available in seven languages, and some basic tax information is available in 20 languages on the website, the IRS said.

“We are continually increasing the information and services available in other languages as well as expanding our interpreter services so that we can interact in a more respectful manner with taxpayers in their most comfortable language,” IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig said in a news release. “We expect to continue these important efforts as we work to earn the trust and respect of every American.”

The IRS said it plans to increase the availability of widely used IRS forms and publications in multiple languages in the coming months and years.