The site will be placed in maintenance on Tuesday, April 23rd to release the below software updates.

ALABAMA

• Correct an issue with the Federal Income Tax Deduction Worksheet not allocating between TP and SP when MFS and filing for Spouse (Issue 2894)
  • An adjustment field was added to adjust the Federal Tax Liability that carries to Line 12 of AL-40.

CHILD AND DEPENDENT CARE 

• Correct an issue where a Single or HoH return would get an error when adding a qualifying person to Step 3 (Issue 3516)

DEPENDENT MENU

• Added a checkbox to indicate if the Dependent/Qualifying Person made over $4,150 during the year

FORM 6251

• Correct a calculation issue on Line 5 when earned income is present – not being added to default exemption amount (Issue 3417)

MARYLAND

• Correct an issue where entries made in the HTC menu for Spouse/Owner field for income sources were not all carrying to PDF (Issue 3536)

WEST VIRGINIA

• Correct an issue where the Taxpayer’s e-mail address is required for E-file when WV is marked as Paper Return.

*Click here to download a PDF of our Cumulative Release Notes.

Update 6:37pm ET – The deployment is complete and Issue 3548 is now closed. Impacted returns can be submitted at this time.

The fix for Issue 3548 will be deployed this evening. This post will be updated once the deployment is complete.

E-FILE: DIRECT DEBIT

• Resolve the issue causing the erroneous direct debit page validation not allowing some users to proceed past the E-file page (Issue 3548)

We just wanted to mention that we are currently experiencing inclement weather in our area. You may experience delays or dropped calls when contacting support via phone due to the weather. E-mail and Chat support should not be impacted.

TaxSlayer VITA/TCE Support will be closed on Easter Sunday, 4/21/2019. Beginning Monday, April 22nd, off-season customer support hours will begin as follows:

• Sunday: CLOSED
• Monday-Friday: 8am-5pm ET
• Saturday: CLOSED

The site will be placed in maintenance on Wednesday, April 17th to release the below software updates.

ARIZONA (2016)

• Correct an issue in the 2016 AZ program where entering a 50/50 split on Form 202 but not allocating on the PDF (Issue 3522)

CALIFORNIA

• Correct a display issue Schedule 540, Part II where Line 11, Column B was not showing the difference between Federal and CA amounts (Issue 3510)

FEDERAL SCHEDULE A

• Correct a calculation issue where the Schedule A Charitable Limitation Worksheet is calculating 60% on the worksheet but carrying 50% to the Schedule A when a New York return is present (Issue 3432)

INDIANA

• Correct a display issue where a date of death in 2019 was carrying as 2018 on IN Schedule 7. Date of Death should not show unless experienced during tax year (Issue 3503)

MARYLAND

• Add the ability to mark the MD-HTC as “Residential Only” (Issue 3507)
• Correct an issue where the Spouse name was pulling into the address line for the Physical Address menu (Issue 3534)
• Correct an issue in the Part-Year program where adjusting the taxable pension, IRA, or annuity amount was not impacting the return (Issue 3524)

MASSACHUSETTS

• Add an option to enter ST Capital Losses on Line 16 of Schedule B on a Part-Year MA return (Issue 3508)

MICHIGAN

• Correct the spelling of “Montgomery” to “Montmorency” inside the MI-1040CR-7 menu (Issue 3487)

MISSISSIPPI

• Add the ability to enter an amended explanation inside the MS amended return (Issue 3498)
• Correct a display issue where the “Installment Agreement Request” box was marked by default (Issue 3500)

PENNSYLVANIA

• Add the menu in the Part-Year PA program to claim a credit for taxes paid to another state (Issue 3527)

*Click here to download a PDF of our Cumulative Release Notes.

We have received a couple reports from the field of a validation issue specific to State Direct Debit payments (shown in the below screenshot). The issue is not widespread and seems to only sometimes impact a State Return Type where “E-file: Direct Debit” is selected. When a user attempts to save the E-file page to continue to the Submission page, they may see the below validation message shown in the screenshot. If your taxpayer wishes to have their state balance paid via Direct Debit and the direct debit validation is received, follow the steps below.

If the Direct Debit Date validation is presented (shown below) related to state direct debit payments, change the State Return Type to “E-file: Mail Payment”, save the entry by continuing to Submission page. Return to E-file and change State Return Type back to “E-file: Direct Debit” and re-enter banking information, if necessary. Continue to the Submission page to complete the e-file process.

Today was the last all partner call for this filing season. Thank you to each and every one of you that made this filing season a success! We know local taxpayers in your community champion your efforts in providing a valuable and vital resource to them.

We didn’t have very many updates to cover today other than reminding everyone we are currently in a “code freeze” until after April 15th. This just means that we will not have any program deployments from April 10th (yesterday) through April 15th. We also mentioned the Suggestion Box and strongly encouraged volunteers to enter any and all suggestions to continue to enhance the software for you. Also, regarding the Suggestion Box, as a reminder the Suggestion Box is to report enhancements you’d like to see but not to report items you feel are defects with the software. Any potential defects need to be reported directly to customer support so they can be addressed quickly.

Below are the questions and answers recorded from the All Partner Call on Thursday, April 11th. There were only two questions asked.

Q: More of a suggestion but a volunteer asked if the 1040-NR program can be updated to allow for an entry to support a departure date prior to an arrival date for the Schedule OI. This would specifically benefit students that go home in May and return to school in August or September.

• We asked this item be reported to the Suggestion Box for further review. One item that needs to be reviewed is if the 1040-NR schema would support this type of entry via electronic submission.

Q: This was a question presented to IRS representatives on the call. How to handle a 1099-MISC with Box 7 income when the income should have been reported in Box 3?

• Advisement from the IRS was to “key it how you see it” but ultimately the taxpayer should be referred back to the payer to have a corrected 1099-MISC.