This is always a good time of the tax season where the need of an amended return tends to come into play. Taxpayers received a late form they weren’t expecting or had forgotten about (W-2, 1099, etc.) and they now need to prepare and file an amended return. For this reason, we wanted to share the 2019 Amended Return User Guide as a refresher for volunteers. Please click here to download the user guide on how to prepare an amended tax return using TaxSlayer Pro Online.
Same functionality, but with a fresh new look:
Many of you have received and read the following IRS Newswire regarding the announcement about electronically filing the 1040X and have already reached out to VITA/TCE support wanting to know when this will be available and how will it work. As of today (May 29, 2020), the IRS has not released the updated schema to software developers to begin the planning stages of how and when the 1040X will be supported electronically. As the IRS releases this information to the industry and releases a timeline of when the MeF system will be updated to receive the 1040X electronically, we will keep our volunteers informed via the blog.
WASHINGTON- The Internal Revenue Service announced today that later this summer taxpayers will for the first time be able to file their Form 1040-X, Amended U.S Individual Income Tax Return, electronically using available tax software products.
Making the 1040-X an electronically filed form has been a goal of the IRS for a number of years. It’s also been an ongoing request from the nation’s tax professional community and has been a continuing recommendation from the Internal Revenue Service Advisory Council (IRSAC) and Electronic Tax Administration Advisory Committee (ETAAC).
Currently, taxpayers must mail a completed Form 1040-X to the IRS for processing. The new electronic option allows the IRS to receive amended returns faster while minimizing errors normally associated with manually completing the form.
“This new process is a major milestone for the IRS, and it follows hard work by people across the agency,” said IRS Commissioner Chuck Rettig. “E-filing has been one of the great success stories of the IRS, and more than 90 percent of taxpayers use it routinely. But the big hurdle that’s been remaining for years is to convert amended returns into this electronic process. Our teams have worked diligently to overcome the unique challenges related to the 1040-X, and we look forward to offering this new service this summer.”
About 3 million Forms 1040-X are filed by taxpayers each year.
The new electronic filing option will provide the IRS with more complete and accurate data in an easily readable format to enable customer service representatives to answer taxpayers’ questions. Taxpayers can still use the “Where’s My Amended Return?” online tool to check the status of their electronically-filed 1040-X.
When the electronic filing option becomes available, only tax year 2019 Forms 1040 and 1040-SR returns can be amended electronically. In general, taxpayers will still have the option to submit a paper version of the Form 1040-X and should follow the instructions for preparing and submitting the paper form. Additional enhancements are planned for the future.
“Adding amended returns to the electronic family also complements our partnership with the tax software industry, which continues to work with us to provide better ways to help taxpayers,” said Ken Corbin, Commissioner of the IRS Wage and Investment division.
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We are working through the suggestions you submitted to us during the season. We encourage you to continue to send us suggestions throughout the summer and fall.
Reminder: The suggestion box should not be used for calculation errors or software issues. You should reach out to VITA/TCE support.
In observance of Memorial Day, May 25th, VITA/TCE Support will be closed. Normal 0ff-season support hours will resume on Tuesday, May 26th at 8:00am ET. We hope everyone has a safe and enjoyable Memorial weekend.
5/21/2020
Ohio has indicated they have resolved the issue. Sites with outstanding OH acknowledgements should have acks at this time.
5/20/2020
We received the following message from the Ohio Department of Taxation
Ohio is currently experiencing some technical issues that has delayed the processing of submissions and delivery of acknowledgments. The issues started in the early evening of Tuesday May 19th and we are currently working to resolve the issue. We will let you know once this issue has been resolved.
10:08am ET
The issue has been resolved.
10:00am ET
We have heard of a few reports of sites using the 2018 program and returns are not rendering any calcs. Essentially, this means the Summary/Print menu will not load, but is instead stuck in a loop trying to load. To break the loop, click Basic Information from the left-hand navigation menu and you can continue preparing the return(s). Note: Generating a PDF may not be available as a by-product.
Our development team is actively investigating.
Update 9:48: This is resolved, you can now start new returns
Update: We are making an emergency deploy to resolve this. You may see a temporary outage while we are making the deploy.
We are experiencing an error when Creating New Returns. We have entered a critical ticket. This does not impact opening existing returns