Pre-season Customer Support hours for VITA/TCE sites began this past weekend. Support hours are now as follows for the remainder of the 2019 calendar year.

• Monday-Friday: 8am-8pm ET
• Saturday-Sunday: 8am-8pm ET

---

 

When will TaxSlayer start processing TY2019 orders?

We have processed 2 orders received from the IRS.  We will receive orders on a weekly basis through December 31st and then on Tuesdays and Thursdays in January.

Returning Sites will receive the following email letting you know the order has been processed

There is no attachment to the email.  It is notifying  you that your site has been processed for TY2019.  Site Admins can use their existing login credentials to start getting your site ready for the upcoming filing season.  We currently do not have a date of when we will turn on the “Start New Return” feature at the production sites (we estimate mid-January).  However, you can access all items under configuration to setup new users, etc.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

New Sites will receive the following two emails.

(1) Setting up your site administration credentials

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Setting up login credentials for Account Hub (where you can download the contingency software)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The site will be placed in maintenance on Thursday, December 5th to release the below software update. Majority of items scheduled in this deploy are back-end items, however, one user facing item will be the new Health Insurance flow for 2019.

HEALTH INSURANCE

• Update the Health Insurance flow for 2019
  • Remove calculation of Shared Responsibility Payment
  • Removing non-applicable pages
    • Coverage exemptions
    • Calculation of Affordability Exemption and related items
    • Months of coverage for each Household member
  • Keeping pages specific to needed 1095-A information, if applicable

New 2019 Flow

• Scenario 1
  • 1st Question – “Did you purchase Health Insurance via Healthcare.gov or a State Marketplace?”
    • If No, Health Insurance menu is complete.
• Scenario 2
  • 1st Question – “Did you purchase Health Insurance via Healthcare.gov or a State Marketplace?”
    • If Yes, continue to “Household Members” page > Provide 1095-A(s) details > Review “Household Income” page (displays if dependent or additional household members are present and have a filing requirement) > Health Insurance menu is complete.

 

*Click here to download a PDF of our Cumulative Release Notes & Program Enhancements.

The Alimony Paid (Adjustment) and Alimony Received (Income) menus have been updated to account for the 2019 updates to Schedule 1 to capture the “Date of original divorce or separation agreement” shown below. However, if entries existed in either menu prior to yesterday’s update, impacted returns may render an error when attempting to access the return from Client List. This is because the program is trying to perform a calculation when not all required entries are available (i.e. missing the date of divorce or separation agreement). We have opened Issue 3940 to correct this issue for impacted returns.

Alimony Received

 

 

 

 

 

 

Alimony Paid

The answers entered on a return for TY 2018, TY2017, and TY2016 will be eliminated from our system on December 30th.

If you need to run any additional reports for Custom Questions, you will need to run these prior to December 30th.

What happens when I run the reports for prior years 2018, 2017 and 2016 after December 30th?

The reports will run, but the data for the answers entered into the tax return will not be on the report

Will the list of answers still be available for the prior year questions?

Yes, the list of answers will still be available when you create a new prior year return or edit an existing prior year return.

I made my questions required, will my preparers be forced to answer them again for prior year returns?

No, we will by-pass the “is required” feature for questions associated with prior year returns.

If I edit a prior year return or amend a prior year return will I be required to answer the questions again?

No

If I answer the questions on prior year returns after 12/31/2019, will the data show up when I run reports for the prior year?

Yes, If the data is entered in prior years after 12/31/2019 it will s how up in that prior year’s report.

We will post additional information throughout the next few months as reminders and if we get additional questions.

• Multi-Site Group (MSA) = Allows a group administrator the ability to create and assign items from the Configuration menu
  • No  Consent is required because the group administrator does not have the ability to see taxpayer data at the sites
• Relational Group = Allows a group administrator the ability to create and assign items from the Configuration menu, review returns, transmit returns, access returns at the child site level, and run reports for the group of sites
  • A TaxSlayer Relational Consent is required and will be assigned to each site, including the group master, prior to Start New Return from being turned on

When are new sites added to existing groups?

We add new sites to groups once the orders have been processed.  We do this on a weekly basis.

When are new groups created and notified of their group login?

We create any new groups once the orders have been processed.  The group master location must be ordered prior to the group being created.

How will I be notified of my group login?

You will be notified of your group login, default passwords and the sites associated with it via VITA/TCE customer support email.

How do I change the group level administrator?

• AARP/TCE sites must submit the request to AARP Foundation
• Non AARP/TCE sites must submit an email to VITA/TCE Customer support that contains the old group level logins, along with the email address and cell phone (optional) of the new group admin

How do I make changes to the sites assigned to my group?

• AARP/TCE sites must submit the request to AARP Foundation
• Non AARP/TCE sites must submit all request to VITA/TCE Customer support via email that contains detailed information, including the EFIN, Site Name and SIDN

 

 

TaxSlayer VITA/TCE support will close today, November 27th at 12:00pm ET and will reopen on Monday, December 2nd at 8:00am ET. We hope everyone has a safe and happy Thanksgiving!

12/2/2019 – The Puerto Rico practice exercises have been updated to 2019.

• Please note current Practice Exercise answers may not reflect some 2019 changes as the application will continue to receive updates as final forms/instructions are released to software vendors. We will work to update the 2019 Practice Exercises as much as possible on a as-needed basis.

---

11/27/2019 – All Practice Exercises have been updated to 2019 except the Puerto Rico Exercises.

• Please note current Practice Exercise answers may not reflect some 2019 changes as the application will continue to receive updates as final forms/instructions are released to software vendors. We will work to update the 2019 Practice Exercises as much as possible on a as-needed basis.

---

To help set expectations in the field, the practice exercises under Section 6 of the Practice Lab will be updated to 2019 the week of Thanksgiving. We wanted to provide extra time for additional updates to be applied to the 2019 software before updating the exercises. This time of year both the IRS and State Departments are continually releasing and finalizing forms, schedules, and instructions to software vendors. Regular updates will be implemented into the software as information is released/provided to software vendors. At this time, the practice exercises are still based on the 2018 application.