Digital Signature

[S T]

Question of the day - and I am not totally proficient at all of the electronic capabilities.

Does anyone know, how a taxpayer can digitally sign a PDF Adobe document that I forward to them??

Sandy

[Peachie]

Not sure if it was considered digital

Question of the day - and I am not totally proficient at all of the electronic capabilities.

Does anyone know, how a taxpayer can digitally sign a PDF Adobe document that I forward to them??

Sandy

Sandy, but I had to sign papers for an insurance change and they sent the forms in a pdf format. I printed, signed and scanned back and sent back via e-mail and they accepted the signature and the papers. This probably doesn't answer your question but it worked for us.

Peachie

[JohnH]

I don't know the legalities, but when I need to do this sort of thing I will email a pdf and ask the client to sign and either scan & email back to me or to fax back to me. I also ask them to confirm via email that they are mailing the signed original back to me as well. That way, if the signed original never shows up, I at least have something in my files to show I acted in good faith based on the client's representations.

[Gretel]

The only other option I know of is to use, I think it is called a tabled laptop, where one can sign right on the screen, much like you do on this electronic machines when signing for your credit card. I believe this is also available as an external device. I also believe that none of us (including me) and none of our clients have such a device.

[gkaiseril]

Question of the day - and I am not totally proficient at all of the electronic capabilities.

Does anyone know, how a taxpayer can digitally sign a PDF Adobe document that I forward to them??

Sandy

Adobe has provided for Digital Certificates that have a public and private key. These certificates can be used to "sign" a PDF document either hidden or in a form field. The signer uses their private key to affix the signature to the PDF and then save the PDF with the signature code. The signer then needs to provide a copy of the public key for their signature or a link to a site that can provide the public key. The receiver uses the public key to verify the signature and that there have been no changes to the PDF since it was 'signed'.

There are digital certificates that comply with the UCC requirements for digital signatures.

This would be more secure than a facsimile signature pasted onto a PDF since anyone could scan a signature and edit it into a PDF, and the person adding the image of the signature might not be the person whose signature is being applied.

http://www.abanet.org/scitech/ec/isc/dsg-tutorial.html

http://www.adobeopenoptions.com/security/pdfs/digital_signatures_guide.pdf

http://www.adobe.com/security/digsig.html

http://digital-signs.blogspot.com/2007/11/pdf-digital-signatures.html