The 2023 Site Administration OnDemand webinar for the 2024 Filing Season are now available. The direct link is available below and also accessible under Section 6 in the Practice Lab.

• Site Administration – Click Here

Remaining OnDemand Webinars: Return Preparation 1 & 2 will be made available after Thanksgiving. Additional blog posts will be published with direct links when available. Under Section 6 of the Practice Lab, the 2022 versions are still available for viewing.

The 2023 Enhancement Webinar (2024 Filing Season) will be presented live the week of December 10th. Please contact your SPEC Relationship Manager for additional information.

With the release of the 2023 TaxSlayer Pro Web application, an update has been made where “Security Templates” within the Configuration menu has been renamed “Roles and Permissions” so that the title is more inline with the action. While the page itself received a UI (User Interface) facelift, the basic functionality has remained unchanged. This update will be covered more in depth during the live Enhancement webinar scheduled for December as well as within the ondemand webinar for Site Administration set to be available mid-November. For now, we have made available the Roles and Permissions user guide here.

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.

CLICK HERE to open a new window to view the PDF. Click on the “Attachments” tab on the left-hand side of the screen to download the Report Descriptions PDF.

Which years can you e-file an amended return requesting direct deposit or direct debit?

TaxSlayer Pro Online

• Amended Return requesting DIRECT DEPOSIT:
  • 2022 TaxSlayer Pro Online supports Direct Deposit.
• Amended Return requesting DIRECT DEBIT:
  • 2021 & 2022 TaxSlayer Pro Online applications support Direct Debit.

TaxSlayer Pro Desktop

• Amended Return requesting DIRECT DEPOSIT:
  • 2022 TaxSlayer Pro Desktop supports Direct Deposit
• Amended Return requesting DIRECT DEBIT:
  • 2020, 2021 & 2022 TaxSlayer Pro Desktop applications support Direct Debit

This post is accurate as of March 28th, 2023

How does it work in TaxSlayer? Inside the Subtractions from Income menu at the bottom, preparers will answer the below question YES or NO. Based on the selection, the program will automatically calculate the appropriate subtraction for the return. If any adjustments are needed, MN has indicated those adjustments will occur on their end after the return has been e-filed and accepted. Prior behavior for this subtraction allowed the preparer to manually enter the appropriate subtraction value in the return. This manual entry resulted in erroneous MN Reject Code 0628: “Severity: ErrorM1M line 29 must not be more than 488 for single, HOH or MFS, and no more than 976 for MFJ. Xpath: M1M Line 29: ReturnState/ReturnDataState/SchM1M/FrontLineWorkerPayAmt“.

Due to the reject code being issued, the entry behavior was updated to be an automatic calculation instead.

Frontline Worker Pay was signed into law on April 29, 2022. Over 1 million Minnesota workers qualified for the $487.45 payment. Federal Forms 1099 were not issued for these payments. The Minnesota Department of Revenue discovered that taxpayers reported this payment incorrectly on 97% of current tax returns filed. As a reminder, this payment is federally taxable and must be reported on line 8 of a taxpayer’s federal Schedule 1 (Form 1040).

The payment is not taxable for Minnesota returns. If the payment is:

• Reported on line 8 of Schedule 1, also enter this amount on these lines:
  • Line 29 of Schedule M1M, Income Additions and Subtractions
  • Line 10 of Form M1PR, Homestead Credit Refund (for Homeowners) and Renter’s Property Tax Refund
  • Line 5b of Schedule M1ED, K-12 Education Credit
• Not reported on line 8 of Schedule 1, do not include the payment on the lines above.

Entering Frontline Worker Pay properly on both the federal and Minnesota returns will ensure Minnesota adjusted gross income is calculated correctly.

Software Developers,

A few of you have reached out about the state winnings info (box 14) being blank on the W2G for a few different gambling entities in Ohio.  Seeing that the OH-PIT-054 error code has one of the highest error code populations so far this season, we thought we’d share our recommendation with all partners.

When W2Gs have an empty box 14 (state winnings), users should then enter the amount from box #1 (Reportable winnings) in its place.

It appears some of the companies that produce the W2Gs for these Ohio gambling entities may see filling in box 14 as being redundant because the amount is the same as box #1. Similar to situation with 1099Rs when box 16 (state distribution) is blank but boxes 14 (state tax withheld) & 15 (state/payers state #) have information, its recommended the user enter the amount from box 1 (gross distribution).

Please let us know if you have any questions.

This is a reject code we are seeing come into support related to tax returns with a Schedule C.

“Reject Code: SC-F1040-007 | Category: Missing Document | Severity: RejectIf Schedule C (Form 1040) Line 33c checkbox ‘OtherClosingInventoryMethodInd’ is checked, then “Other Method Used To Value Closing Inventory Statement” [OtherMethodUsedToValueClosingInventoryStatement] must be attached.”

This reject is caused because preparers are accessing the “Question About the Operation of Your Business” page and selecting “Not Applicable” for “Method used to value closing inventory” but NOT also entering any values for any other field in the page most likely because it is not applicable to the return and also considered out of scope. This is creating a blank record in the e-file because the IRS is also looking for Page 2 of the Schedule C BUT this is not generated because no inventory values were provided within the Schedule C and Page 2 is not generated when it is not required.

• TIP: If there is no inventory related to the Schedule C, the “Question About the Operation of Your Business” page should be ignored as it is not applicable to the return.

IMPACTED RETURNS: For any return with a Schedule C that received Reject Code SC-F1040-007, go into the return, access the Schedule C and change the inventory selection back to “cost“. Continue out of the Schedule C to save then the return can be resubmitted.