Blog Detail

The following items were covered by TaxSlayer at the opening of the call

• There have been well over 500,000 returns electronically filed since the last partner call on February 15th.
• TaxSlayer delivered Form 5695 – Residential Energy Credit in Thursday morning’s deploy.  This goes along with the other three items already in the software for the recently passed extenders:
  • Tuition and Fees
  • PMI in Itemized Deductions
  • Form 982 – Cancellation of Debt
• The 1040 View is still showing Line 34 as reserved.  This is just a display issue and does not impact the calculations of the return
• We are still gathering information from the states regarding how they are going to handle the recently passed extenders.  We will keep a blog post updated as that information comes in.
• We resolved the issue from Tuesday afternoon where the states were not automatically being made available to the IRS state delivery system after the federal return was accepted.
  • If there are still states that are outstanding from your perspective, please send the information to support.  They will need to know SIDN, last 4 of the SSN and which state (in case you have multiple states on the return)
• We have been getting several inquiries regarding Form 8867 – Paid Preparer Due Diligence.
  • The software bypasses the form this year when going to E-file.
  • The form is not in the default print sets that are delivered by TaxSlayer
  • If the form is in a custom print set and was manually completed, it WILL print the preparer’s name on it, as this form is designed for our Paid Preparer customers.
• IRS Reject IND-046
  • We are seeing a lot of support traffic regarding this code because a lot of sites are seeing it more this year than they have in the past.
  • The IRS went back and added additional items to be flagged as disallowed (CTC, ACTC, and AOTC).  While these have different business rules, they could have also updated more taxpayers for being disallowed EIC
  • This business rule also applies if EIC was partially disallowed
  • If the taxpayer’s return is issued this business rule, the only way to electronically file the return is to add the 8862 to the return.
• Disaster Areas for California Wildfires
  • We are in the process of adding California Wildfires to the drop down list in personal information
  • During the meantime, you can still designate the disaster area:
    • Navigate to personal information
    • Select the disaster area box
    • Select enter Disaster Designation from the list
    • Type in California Wildfires
  • This will follow the path of returns marked for the hurricane area
• The 933 Exclusion has been added to the 1040 program.  There is a blog article with screenshots on how to use it, use keyword search 933 to bring up the article or click here
  • Navigate to Other Income
  • Select Other Compensation
  • Answer the Bona fide resident question
  • Enter the amount of income to exclude
  • If you are itemizing deductions the program will tell you the Pro rated percentage
  • If you are using the standard deduction, the program will automatically prorate the deduction
• We added a new dialog to the Submission page in the e-file section last week.
  • If you click Save and Transmit, a new dialog box displays that requires an action
• We corrected an issue last where where IRS Accepted returns were being resent (which generated a 902 reject) if the user exited the application through Save and Exit return on the submission page in e-file.  This is no longer happening
• The IRS MeF system will have an extended maintenance period on Sunday from midnight to 2:00 pm EST
  • This means any returns sent to us during this time will be held until the IRS completes their mainenance
• TaxSlayer maintenance will be Sunday morning (March 4th) from 1:00 am to 7:00 am EST
• At the time of the call we were having an issue with the states generating a validation error if there was a date field on the entry page.
  • This was Resolved at approximately 4:00 on Thursday afternoon

Q:  Where is the direct debit information printed on the return?

A:  It is printed on the Client List form, which is currently in the Quality Review print set.  An alternative to pulling this up and just printing out the page, would be to create a Direct Debit print set that just has the Client List Form in it.  This would allow you to print the tax return as normal and then for those taxpayers using direct debit, you can choose that print set and it will just generate a PDF with the Client list form in it.  You can then print the entire Client List for or the page the information is listed on.

Q:  Are there more instructional videos or information on entering ACA exemptions A and C

A:  There is a blog post that outlines how to use the new Affordability worksheet.  This can be pulled up by using the keyword search of Affordability or clicking here.  The Taxpayer Opportunity Network will be sending out some training information on this later next week for sites that are members of this group.

Q:  When does Form 5405 print

A:  It only prints if you are disposing of the property.  If the taxpayer doesn’t know how much they have paid back, there is a lookup tool on the entry page that will give this information if the taxpayer is there to provide the required information for pulling the data from the IRS.

Q:  When will prior year reports pull return data for TY2016 returns that were prepared after January 1st, 2018

A: We do have an issue in development to display this information on the Site Production Detail and Summary reports for 2016.  The following reports until Management Reports will display information on these returns

• ProWeb Reports — Detailed Return Report
• Electronic Filing Summary Report
• State Detail Summary Report

Q:  Do front line reps have access to returns this year?

A:  Yes because our system has been revised to mask the personal information.  They do not have the ability to change and transmit these returns, just view them.

Q:  If there is an occasion when TaxSlayer goes in and resubmits a return, how would the volunteer site know?

A:  This would be a very rare occurrence and limited to a few people with the appropriate credentials.  We would only do this to troubleshoot something going on in the field for the site, or test a fix that would bypass a validation error.  If we do this, it logs our username in the return client history so the site can tell.

Q:  How to resolve getting a message that the SSN already exists, if we prepared the return in TS 2016 and then switch to TS 2017?

A:  The best solution for this is to have the user log out of the application, close the browser, open a new instance of the browser and then create the 2017 return.  This will by pass the error message and allow for prior year data.  This does not happen all of the time, but sometimes the session does not end switching between years and the application still thinks the user session is in the prior year.

Q:  Does TaxSlayer prevent $0 AGI returns from being electronically filed?

A:  No, but the IRS will reject them.  If you need to file a state that does not have a federal filing requirement, make sure you select the “Send state only” box in the e-file section.  Note:  You must select a federal filing type for E:file, but as long as the “Send State Only” box is marked, the federal will not be transmitted.

blog posted 03/02/2018