In February and March, the United Way of Central West Virginia (Charleston) hosted nine young people from AmeriCorps NCCC.  Sponsored by the Corporation for National and Community Service, this team trained and certified, and prepared many federal and state returns.

AmeriCorps NCCC is a full-time, residential, team-based program for young adults, age 18-24.  VITA tax preparation is a growing area of their mission.  This team enlivened this United Way site with their energy and enthusiasm, and provided valuable assistance to many taxpayers.

The AmeriCorps NCCC motto is, “Be The Greater Good”.  This team certainly was for this first-year VITA site.

For more information, contact Cassandra Curtis at the United Way of Central West Virginia ([email protected]) or AmeriCorps NCCC Assistant Program Director Stephanie Chan ([email protected]).

Thank you Cassel P. for sharing this awesome story with us.

3/19/18 – Issue #1589 is now resolved

The fix for the VT Renter Rebate amount on Line 9 of PR-141 being limited to $3,200 instead of $3,000 is scheduled to go out Monday, March 19th. Continue to utilize Return Tags at your sites to track any VT returns showing amounts above $3,000 on Line 9 of PR-141. Impacted VT returns can be transmitted once this blog post has been marked resolved.

We will be placing the site in maintenance on Friday, March 16th at 5:00am ET to release a series of updates.

• Update the year shown on Spanish Form 8879 within 2017 program (Issue #1568)
• Adding CA Schedule X as a configurable print set form (Issue #1590)

3/21/2018 – RESOLVED

We have opened Issue #1646 to correct a display issue when first creating a 1099-R in a return. The Gross Distribution reported in Box 1 is not displaying in Box 2a. If creating a new 1099-R and reporting the Gross Distribution, you don’t catch that Box 2a didn’t auto-fill, don’t worry, the value is still saved when clicking “Continue” to exit the 1099-R. There is no impact to a return in this situation.

• When creating a new 1099-R, entering $10,000 in Box 1, saving the entry without also entering a value in Box 2a, the 1099-R will save the taxable amount as if it automatically carried over from Box 1 (which it still does)
• When creating a new 1099-R, entering $10,000 in Box 1, then making a manual entry in Box 2a of $9,000, the manually entered Box 2a amount of $9,000 is what saves and carries to the return as taxable
• When creating a new 1099-R, entering $10,000 in Box 1, then completing either the Simplified General Rule Worksheet and/or PSO exclusion, the correct taxable amount will carry to Box 2a and be included with the return

This is only a display issue when tabbing off of the 1099-R Box 1 field and not seeing the same value auto-fill within Box 2a.

The IRS released a Quick Alert titled, “Extended Maintenance Window for both MeF ATS and Production Environments”.

“The MeF maintenance build window is being extended on Sunday, March 18, 2018. Both ATS and Production systems will be unavailable from 12:00 a.m. until 11:00 a.m. Eastern.  The build will deploy critical system updates.

Thank you in advance for refraining from accessing the MeF Systems during this period.”

This means that any returns e-filed on Sunday, March 18th from 12am-11am ET will not be transmitted to the IRS until after their maintenance window has closed.

3/19/18 – This is now resolved. For any existing RRB-1099-R entries that may have been impacted, you will need to edit each entry to re-enter the Box 7a amount to save.

We opened Issue #1640 for taxable amounts entered within the RRB-1099-R not carrying to Line 16b as taxable on the 1040. This is only occurring if Box 7a is manually entered by the user. If entering a RRB-1099-R and determining the taxable amount either by using the Simplified General Rule Worksheet or applying a PSO exclusion, the calculated taxable figure is carrying to 1040 as expected.

If needing to manually enter the taxable amount in Box 7a for a RRB-1099-R, we recommend holding those returns until this post is marked as resolved. We also recommend utilizing Return Tags to track any impacted returns your site(s) may have.

We received a request to highlight a VITA/TCE out of Massachusetts, Springfield Technical Community College, that was recently highlighted on a locally produced TV show in the area, Mass Appeal. To check out the interview and learn how this site is spreading the VITA word around their community, click here.

Thank you for sharing, Deyanira!

We will be placing returns in maintenance on Tuesday, March 13th at 5:00am ET to release some updates.  This updated included the following:

• Ohio RITA 37 – You can now load and calculate the form (Issue #1557)
• Rejected Returns button — Reduced to one Call to Action blink
• Form 8941 – Added the ability to enter a marketplace identifier if eligibility is answered yes to calculate Form 3800 (Issue #727)
• Zip Codes – The following zip codes now auto-populate (Issue #1565)
  • 85755 – Tucson, AZ
    60403 – Crest Hill, IL
    60404 – Shorewood, IL
• PA — Corrected an erroneous validation error for ‘ForeignAddress’ in namespace (Issue# 1583)
• OH — (Desktop) Corrected an erroneous validation error for “Donation, TotalDonation, Refund’ in namespace (Issue #1588)