Returns will be placed in maintenance beginning Tuesday, June 19th at 5:00am ET to release updates.

• IA: Update some text within the blue header inside the Itemized Deduction page (Issue #2033)
• CA: Adding additional transparency inside the CA return (Other Income Taxable to California and Adjustments to Income Subject to California Tax menus) for users to easily see Federally reported amounts
• MN: Adding additional transparency inside the MN return for Federally reported INT/DIV income, Business Income/Loss, Gains/Losses, Pension and Annuities, Rents and Royalties, Farm Income/Loss, and Other Income/Loss

We have added the IRS Explanation forms that are submitted to the IRS if further explanation about something is needed to be provided to the IRS.  These will print with the Assigned Print sets if they are used in the return and will be included in the electronic file.

Navigate to Federal Section >> Miscellaneous Forms and Select Begin on the Explanations line

Select the appropriate Explanation.  The majority of the explanations will go on Preparer Notes (which we are using in the example)

Enter a title and explanation…Click continue when finished.

Note:  You can expand the box by dragging the two horizontal lines in the lower right hand corner (circled in picture)

The Preparer Note Summary page will be displayed:

Click Continue to return to the Explanations Menu when finished.

The Custom Consents Report is now available.  This report is designed to indicate the Acceptance (Yes) or denial (No) granted by the taxpayer.  This report was designed to run at the site level.

Navigate to Reports and select Custom Consents:

Note:  If you have customized your reports via Configuration, you will need to navigate to Configuration >> Report Customization and add Custom reports to your report list

Click Select

Below is an example of a generated report.

Note:  If you have multiple consents, you will need to export the report to see all of the consent titles and corresponding results

You can export the information and merge it with other reports that require consents to ensure you are reporting up the approved taxpayer information.

An enhancement released today now gives users (with the appropriate security template) the ability to assign Custom Consents to a specific tax year at their site(s). There is also the option to assign Custom Consents to all tax years at your site(s). Now, when accessing Configuration>Consent Forms a drop-down field is available to select the tax year for the consent to display or you can select “ALL“.

The next time you visit the Submission page inside of a return, you will notice the “Save and Return” button shown below. When clicked, this directs users to the Summary/Print page inside of the return without having to click the “Back” button to return to the first page of E-file then click “Back” once again to go back into a taxpayers return. Selecting “Save and Return” also saves data entered on the Submission and is also logged in Client Status under the Return Audit History.

We will be releasing a couple updates on Tuesday, June 12th at 5:00am ET.

• Firefox Browser – Fixing an issue when using Mozilla Firefox within the Federal Estimated Payments menu. Tabbing no longer moves cursor to next entry field when tabbing from 2nd entry box (Issue #2008).
• Schedule A, Gambling Losses Text Update – With the recent addition of the Gambling Loss entry field within the W-2G entry menu in the Income section, text has been added to the Schedule A, Misc Deduction menu to not re-enter losses already reported on the W-2G.
• Tracking ID 277609 –  View Full SSN designation in Security Templates now applies to Review Returns, as well as the Client list.

This will be the re-scheduled deployment from Thursday, May 31st. This update will mostly include back-end work.

• PA Local Form – Remove the second mention of “for” within Basic Information when asking “City for Which You are Filing for:“
• Release Notes – Update the URL within Release Notes on the left navigation bar to redirect users to the Release Notes category in the VITA/TCE Blog
• Review Returns – Previously, with a Security Template that did not allow full view of the SSN from “Client List” still showed the full SSN when inside the “Review Returns” menu. Update released today also masks the first 5-digits of the Taxpayer SSN within the “Review Returns” menu for users with a security template that does not allow full SSN view.

There is a scheduled deployment on Thursday, May 31st at 5:00am ET to release some updates. This update will mostly include back-end work.

• PA Local Form – Remove the second mention of “for” within Basic Information when asking “City for Which You are Filing for:“