As you are working with your taxpayers either via your virtual model or those using the FSA Kiosk URLs, you should be reminding your taxpayers/clients that their IP PIN changes each year and they should have received a new PIN to avoid rejects and delays in their tax return.  FSA URL Sites, you may want to send this information with your emails in the event your taxpayers get rejected for IP PIN, they know how to retrieve it. 

https://www.irs.gov/identity-theft-fraud-scams/retrieve-your-ip-pin

If we assigned you an Identity Protection PIN (IP PIN) and you lost it or you didn’t receive our CP01A Notice with your new IP PIN, you’ll need to retrieve it or have it reissued to ‘e-file’ your return.

We assigned you an IP PIN if you:

• Received a CP01A Notice
• Opted-in to receive an IP PIN
• Tried to e-file your tax return and it was ‘rejected because you didn’t include an IP PIN’

How to retrieve your IP PIN online

You may use our Get an IP PIN online tool to retrieve your current IP PIN. We require you to register and verify your identity in order to use the tool. This process is essential to protect your personal and tax information. Please refer to “Step 2: What You Need”, before using the online tool. Follow the prompts to retrieve your IP PIN.

If you previously created an online account and obtained an IP PIN, access Get an IP PIN and log in to your account with your username and password. You may be required to verify your identity again due to our increased account security. Follow the prompts to retrieve your IP PIN.

How to get your IP PIN reissued

If you’re unable to retrieve your IP PIN online, you may call us at 800-908-4490 for specialized assistance, Monday – Friday, 7 a.m. – 7 p.m. your local time (Alaska & Hawaii follow Pacific Time), to have your IP PIN reissued. An assistor will verify your identity and mail your IP PIN to your address of record within 21 days.

Exceptions:

• If you’ve moved since January 1 of this year, or
• It’s after October 14 and you haven’t filed your current or prior year Forms 1040 or 1040 PR/SS.

If you cannot access the Get an IP PIN online tool, your best alternative at this time is to file your tax return by paper without your IP PIN.

Update 2/16/21: The fix is scheduled to be deployed tomorrow morning during our deploy window (2/17/21).

The program is generating an Unexpected Request Error after answering the Qualified Disaster Question on the 1099-R.  We have this marked as a high priority issue (#5485)

This is a reminder to make sure you communicate your site telephone number and/or email address to the taxpayers you are emailing the FSA link to.  This gives them the correct avenue to get help in preparing their tax return or asking tax questions.  They will be directed back to the site they received the link from if they reach out directly to our support lines.

If your site is seeing $24 on the invoice page, this is just a display issue.  It has not impact on the return.

You can now send your MN and AL returns with your federal returns.  We still have “State Only” turned off so you will need to wait to send any states that have validation errors or those that may have gotten rejected while we had these two states turned on.

We will update this post with instructions on how to identify the return you need to send as “state only” when that feature is turned back on.

There are three key items you need to know in order to be able to deactivate a return:

(1) The security template assigned to your username must allow it

(2) The return must be in the status of “in progress” or

(3) the return must be in the status of “Review failed”

You cannot deactivate a return once it is marked complete or transmitted.

We have found that the Close Window button in the Scanned Document tab works differently based on the scenario:

Reject Code IND-941-01
Message The Spouse SSN in the return has been locked because Social Security Administration records indicate the number belongs to a deceased individual.

The taxpayer will need to reach out to the Social Security Administration to see why the return is locked.  Even if the taxpayer died in 2020, the date of death could be different at the Social Security Administration.  You will not be able to file this return until this is resolved.