Like they do every year, Maureen Donovan and her husband round up the materials they need to file their taxes.

On a recent trip to Augusta, the Litchfield couple stopped by the Maine Revenue Service office to pick up state forms, but they were stymied at the Edmund S. Muskie Federal Building — no forms were available in the lobby, and the Internal Revenue Service office is now closed.

“Always, when you went into the federal building downstairs where the guards are, there would be a place there that had all the forms,” Donovan said. “You went in and got what you needed and that was fine.”

But this is not every year.

Across the state and across the country, business and government offices have shut down in response to executive orders limiting physical gatherings and banning in-person interactions for all but essential operations to slow the spread of the highly contagious coronavirus, which causes the respiratory disease COVID-19.

One of the consequences of those closures is that federal tax forms have not been restocked at the Muskie Building.

“You’d think there would be somebody local who works at the IRS that could go in maybe once or twice a week and restock what they are low on,” Donovan said.

That’s apparently not the case. A call to the IRS media relations office resulted in a referral to the federal tax agency’s website’s COVID-19 information page, which was last updated earlier this week.

IRS officials are urging taxpayers and tax professionals to use electronic tax filing options to ensure social distancing and to speed up tax return processing. No paper returns are currently being processed, and the agency’s National Distribution Center, which ordinarily sends out requested tax forms, is closed until further notice.

Donovan learned about the distribution center closure nearly two weeks ago when she called. The first message indicated the center would be closed for two weeks. A subsequent message said the center would be closed indefinitely.

Donovan has a computer and internet access, and she could download the forms she needs, but she doesn’t have a printer, nor can she use one at the local library, which is closed.

She also recognizes that not everyone in Maine has a computer or reliable access to the internet. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, from 2014 to 2018, 88.4% of households had a computer, but only 80% of households had a broadband internet subscription. Other organizations, like the National Center for Education Statistics puts the percent of Maine households with internet access  lower, at 77.9%

While she could file electronically, Donovan and her husband prefer to fill out the paper forms themselves.

She said she has reached out to the offices of Sen. Susan Collins and Rep. Jared Golden for help, and she has gotten some of the forms via mail as a result, but not all of them. Donovan said she would see if a friend could print those out.

Even the Maine Taxpayer Advocate Service — an independent organization within the IRS that helps taxpayers solve tax problems that people can’t resolve by themselves — cannot solve this problem.

“The division that runs the Taxpayer Assistance Center is different from ours and I am not authorized to speak on their behalf,” Mark Carrell, taxpayer advocate, said. “When a taxpayer asks us for forms, we refer them to the Taxpayer Assistance Center.

“We have even been known to pull live copies and mail them out, but that’s a matter of going downstairs, grabbing copies and sticking them in the mail,” he added. “But we can’t do that now because obviously, we’re locked out, too.”

Another consequence of widespread closures is the extension in the filing deadline. Both federal and Maine state taxes are now due no later than July 15, so the Donovans are not at risk to incur any late fees.

For Donovan, it’s a matter of principle. If the state of Maine can provided printed forms, she said, the federal government should also be able to.

“I guess I’m old-fashioned,” she said. “That is their job to provide it. That’s what we pay our taxes for.

“I don’t meant to be a trouble-maker,” Donovan added, “but I think they need to think of everybody.”

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