A product deployment for TaxSlayer Pro Online will occur Tuesday, November 7th beginning at 5:00am ET to release the below update(s). Note that deployments may take up to 3 hours to complete. During this time, access to the program may be limited.

PRACTICE LAB

• 2023 Practice Lab will be released

Practice Lab 2023 is scheduled to be released/available on Tuesday, November 7th. Please keep in mind that the Practice Lab will be updated twice a week as we receive finalized forms and instructions from the IRS. With that, we ask volunteers to not report calculation issues to support.

With the Practice Lab 2023 release, you will have access to PL 2023 and PL 2022.

When you log in to your Production Sites, you will see the following TaxSlayer 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019 and 2018. You do not have the ability to create new returns in 2023, but you can still prepare returns in all of the available prior years. You will be able to electronically file 2022, 2021 and 2020 until the IRS shuts down their MeF system on November 18th at 11:59pm ET.

States will not be available in Practice Lab 2023 until closer to the filing season in either late December or early January. You can use PL 2022 to have your volunteers train or practice with state returns.

Iowa’s production system is currently unavailable until November 13th for system updates. This means that acknowledgments for e-filed IA returns will not be delivered until November 13th at the earliest. Sites can still e-file IA returns during this period.

10/14/23

Maine has resumed processing returns/acknowledgements.

10/13/23 – Update from Maine with more details about the ack delays.

“Maine Revenue Services has received a lot of questions regarding the stoppage of MeF processing.  I received word late last night that this also includes paper filing as well.  Here is what I did find out last night and I will keep you updated with any new information that I receive.

1. MRS will still pull all MEF returns from the IRS daily, this includes 1040, 1120, 941P, and 1041
2. MRS will still accept paper returns
3. There is no need to change the way you would have originally filed a return
4. All returns are processed by date received – which is the date they are pulled from the IRS or received by mail
5. The stoppage is not related to MeF or paper forms, but an internal processing error on 1040 returns which we are feverishly correcting

MRS’s MeF process ties all processing of 1120, 1040, 941P, and 1041 together until the submissions have made it into the internal system which is why this is affecting all of our MeF profiles.  We are unable to individually turn of a single profile.  For the paper forms, those are sorted by tax type then processed.  All other tax types other than 1040 will continue to get processed normally if they are paper filed.

MRS sincerely apologizes for this inconvenience.”

The below message was received this afternoon from Maine Revenue Services. Maine has not indicated an ETA for when acknowledgements will resume processing.

“Maine Revenue Services executives have decided to stop all MeF processing due to internal return processing issues not related to MeF.“

9/14/23 – The below deployment did not occur this morning.

A product deployment for TaxSlayer Pro Online will occur Thursday, September 14th beginning at 5:00am ET to release the below update(s). Note that deployments may take up to 3 hours to complete. During this time, access to the program may be limited.

SCHEDULE C

• Update business codes and descriptions (Issue 249)

TaxSlayer VITA/TCE Support will be unavailable from 8am to 10am ET on Wednesday, September 13th.

A product deployment for TaxSlayer Pro Online will occur Tuesday, September 12th beginning at 5:00am ET to release the below update(s). Note that deployments may take up to 3 hours to complete. During this time, access to the program may be limited.

E-FILE

• Add “AGI Display” to the return summary display on the right hand side of the e-file screens (Enhancement)

Software vendors received the below message from Maine Revenue Services.

“As a reminder, Maine is performing an upgrade to our internal software which will be completed in 1 to 2 years.  As we have done in prior years for Corporate and Pass-Through, processing will be put on hold for 1040ME and 1041ME.

The last day we will pull 1040ME and 1041ME returns from the IRS will be Thursday September 14^th, 2023.  Those returns will post (if they pass our validations) on Friday September 15^th, 2023.  Any returns received at the IRS after Thursday September 14^th, 2023 will NOT be picked up from the IRS or processed until Tuesday October 10^th, 2023.  ACK’s will not be sent for those returns received after Thursday September 14^th, 2023 until we resume processing on Tuesday October 10^th, 2023.

One additional item, due to transferring from our current legacy system to our new system all other MeF services (1120, 941P) will be affected from Thursday October 5^th at 12:01am until the morning of Tuesday October 10^th.  Returns can be submitted, but will not be retrieved from the IRS until our system is back up and running on October 10^th.  

We apologize for any inconvenience and delay in processing this may cause.  If you have any questions please contact us.“