Taxpayers and preparers will have lots of questions on how the law applies in a wide range of scenarios. The Service has issued mounds of guidance on the law, but there are still open issues that taxpayers and tax pros alike are grappling with. Don’t look for much live assistance from IRS, at least not in the near term. Its toll-free help-line numbers aren’t working during the government shutdown. This includes the practitioner priority line that preparers can usually call with queries about their clients’ accounts. Also shuttered are IRS’s taxpayer assistance centers and offices of the Taxpayer Advocate Service. When the government eventually reopens, we foresee long wait times on telephone lines and at in-person help locations because agency workers will be inundated with people seeking answers to tax queries. You might be better off going to the automated tax help features on IRS’s website.