Although I find this a rather lazy play on behalf of Intuit, the use of another relative/friend's telephone number (in both places where a telephone number is required) seems to be the only thing I could get to work. I did not try the other option of Google Voice. According to my personal experience many people are very reluctant to share their phone number, especially when it comes to taxes because they figure it must be some sort of fraud or hack. Most of us are just passing through once per year and do not want to delay our return so we just play along with this burdensome requirement. I think a better solution would be to eliminate the phone as verification. I assume that most of us, already have a verified e-mail address on file with Intuit and don't want to make such a weird request of others to share their phone number. Most US government agencies / organizations provide a choice for verification via telephone or e-mail. It should be noted that the problem is with Intuit and not the IRS.
