The site will be placed in maintenance on Thursday, January 25th at 5:00am Eastern to release a series of updates.

• Text updates to assist prepares completing the affordability worksheet. Screenshots will be provided after the deployment

On the Household Income screen additional text was added to further explain this entry is only needed if preparers will be completing the Affordability Worksheet later.

On the LCBP and SLCSP screen, the outlined text received an overall update to explain to preparers how to retrieve the LCBP and SLCSP premium values

Various updates on the Affordability Worksheet when entering annualized contribution amounts. The word “ANNUALIZED” is now bold and in all CAPS. We also added text next to Situation 1 and 2 to help explain the monthly figure needs to be multiplied by 12 and then entered into each applicable month.

We will be placing the site in maintenance made beginning Friday, January 19th at 5:00am Eastern to apply a series of updates. Items that were released with todays updates impacting TaxSlayer Pro Online:

• Corrected misspelled text within the F1116
• ACA: Issue was fixed where the Dependent MAGI screen was not showing for full-year coverage through the Marketplace for all household members and a 1095-A was received.

We will be putting returns in maintenance mode to apply a series of updated on Wednesday, January 17th at 5:00am Eastern. This round of updates is scheduled to include the below items:

• Long-term Care Insurance Premium – Fix for a validation that is occurring when attempting to edit/review original LTC Premium entries within the Itemized Deduction menu
• Various text updates specific to 2017
• Health Insurance – A fix for an error occurring when a Household member is added within the Health Insurance menu with zero (0) months of coverage
• Health Insurance – A fix for a validation error occurring at e-file when marking a dependent as “Not a dependent” that is blocking access to the e-file menu. The program is incorrectly indicating the “Non” dependent must be included for Health Insurance
• Mortgage Insurance Premium Deduction – Due to recently expiring the PMI deduction within the Mortgage Interest menu will be removed

An identified issue with reporting Long-term Care Insurance Premiums is expected to be resolved this week. Once the fix is scheduled to go live, we will post this information in a new blog post.

The Issue:

As an example, let’s say the taxpayer is 72 years old. The preparer visits the Itemized Deduction>Medical and Dental Expenses>Long-Term Care Premiums menu. The preparer claims the allowed premium amount for taxpayers aged 70 or older of $5,110 and saves the entry. The Quality Reviewer then comes behind to verify the entry. Accessing the LTCP menu, they see the preparer correctly entered $5,110 so they click “Continue” to exit the screen and move on. The issue is that the screen is incorrectly validating the correct entry by saying the “Premiums paid can not exceed $410” which would be true if the taxpayer was age 40 or younger.

The Workaround:

When this validation is incorrectly applied to the entry screen for LTCP, instead of clicking “Continue” to move on, click “Cancel”. Clicking cancel will take you out of the screen without kicking off a calculation which is causing the incorrect validation to show. Now, the initial entry made and saved is still on the return. The fix, when pushed live, will allow users to correctly click “Continue” without causing an incorrect validation to show.

We are excited to announce that the addition of the Affordability Worksheet (Phase II of Health Insurance redesign) will be released soon (tomorrow that is – 1/12/18)! Click here  to then download a PDF providing additional information regarding the implementation of the Affordability Worksheet. The PDF will be found on the left-hand navigation bar after clicking the link.

Remember, the intent on the redesign after adding the Affordability Worksheet is specific to the order in which claiming exemptions is presented to the user. Previously, the determination to claim the affordability exemption was presented too early in the Health Insurance menu way before users had the opportunity to claim other coverage exemptions that applied (causing increased legwork on the preparer). The general order for claiming exemptions for not having Health Insurance is as follows:

1. Program first determines if “Household or Gross Income below Filing Threshold” exemption applies
   • If the return qualifies, exemption is applied to the return and the Health Insurance menu is complete
   • If the return does not qualify, move to Step 2.
2. Preparer is now asked if any household members received a Marketplace Issued Exemption Certificate or qualifies to claim another coverage exemptions besides affordability
   • If the household members came to your site with a Marketplace Issued Exemption Certificate or qualified for another coverage exemption, this information can be entered into the program and applied accordingly to each applicable household member
3. If a Marketplace Issued Exemption Certificate was not received (or will not be applied for) and another coverage exemption does not qualify, the preparer can then make the determination to see if the “Coverage is Considered Unaffordable” applies and are then taken through those steps.

We have received a few issues reported in various states where an entry field acknowleding users can enter a +/- value is not allowing a negative entry (most commonly used when subtraction retirement income, military pay, etc.). This particular issue is across all states and not specific to just a few states. With that said, we are actively investigating to provide a quick resolve but in the meantime, there is a current work around that will allow negative entries to be captured.

For example, if you are looking to subtract $10,000 in a state return, your thinking will have you enter the negative sign “-“ then the amount (-10000). This is currently validating and not being allowed. The workaround would be to enter at least the first two digits (10 in this example) then using your mouse, click to move the cursor in front of the first digit (1 in this example) then you can then enter the “-“ sign. You can also use the “HOME” key on your keyboard for the same result.

Internet Explorer Specific: The negative sign “-“ that must be entered using the above steps must be the one located on the main keyboard to the left of the Backspace button and NOT the “-“ located on the number keypad.

1/9/18 – 8:40am ET

Return preparation is now out of maintenance as new UI/UX updates were released (User Interface, User Experience).

• The pill shaped buttons are now rectangle in shape and a little larger
• The navigational buttons (Edit, Begin, Enter Myself, etc.) are darker in color with white wording
• When on Summary/Print the left navigation bar is collapsed (previous behavior) but instead of clicking the “Expand” arrows, simply hovering your mouse over the left navigation bar will automatically expand the menu

1/9/18 – 8:18am ET

The site (only return preparation) will be placed into maintenance mode for about 30 minutes beginning at 8:20am ET. This maintenance window will be complete prior to 9:00am ET. This will only impact return preparation.

Phase I of the new Health Insurance redesign has been released. Phase I incorporates the new flow users will see when preparing 2017 returns starting next week (this is also live in the Practice Lab). Phase II will incorporate the addition of the Affordability Worksheet which is expected to be in production prior to turning on “Start New 2017 Tax Return”. The intent behind the redesign of the flow is to first allow users to claim qualifying exemptions before presenting the option to determine affordability. Assuming the household does not qualify to claim the “Household or Gross Income below…..” exemption, did not receive a Marketplace issued exemption certificate, or does not qualify to claim a coverage exemption, then and only then will the user be presented the option to determine affordability.

The first visible change you will see will be on the “Household Income” screen. This used to be the “Dependents’ MAGI (if filing requirement)” screen. An entry field for “Premium amount paid through salary reduction agreement” has been added. This will be the first step in determining affordability as this entry will be in included in the Affordability Threshold (Line A of Affordability Worksheet).

The second change will be when a user clicks “Continue” on the “Household Income” menu. Clicking continue here is where the automatic determination of “Household or Gross Income below Filing Threshold” exemption will occur. If the return qualifies for this exemption, the exemption will be applied to the return and the Health Insurance menu will be complete. If the return does not qualify for the above mentioned exemption, the user now has the option to claim either a Marketplace issued certificate exemption or another coverage exemption for each household member. They will answer “YES” when asked “Did you qualify for an exemption due to circumstances or receive an exemption certificate from the marketplace?”.

If a user answers “NO” to the above question, “Did you qualify for an exemption…..”, the user will be then asked if they wish to complete the process to determine if the affordability exemption may apply (Phase II coming soon). More details will be released once Phase II has been rolled into production.