For now: Review all Renter Rebate forms (PR and LC) carefully in the PDF.
Week three of tax preparation and we have our third significant Vermont TaxSlayer issue. It occurs across a variety of OS/browsers [eg, W-10/Edge, W-7/IE-11, W-10/Chrome. W-10/Firefox, and iMac/Safari). Our browsers have been cleared and our cookies deleted. The problems (at least two pairs of them): Problem #1, on LC-142: On the Landlord Certificate (1) page [and also the other four pages (2)...(5)], you can not enter a value directly into the field for the "percent tenant pays". When you click on that field and start typing, nothing happens...the field remains as "0.00". Problem #2, on LC-142: If you succeed in entering a value (typically 100%) into this field (using workaround described below), click SAVE to exit the page, and later return to this page (for QR, perhaps), the value you entered is gone and the "0.00" is there again. Problem #3, on PR-141: The same problem occurs on the PR-141 page for Home Use Percentage. When you click on the Home Use Percentage field, you are unable to enter a value--nothing typed into the field appears in the field, it remains "0.00". Problem #4, on PR-141: If you succeed in entering a value (typically 100%) into this field (using workaround described below), click SAVE to exit the page, and later return to this page (for QR, perhaps), the value you entered is gone and the "0.00" is there again. Workaround We have been reduced to using the following workaround to enter values into these two fields. • Click in the field that precedes the "percent tenant pays" field [that would be "Dollar value of ..."] or the "Home Use Percentage" field [that would be the "Location of Rental Property"] • Click <tab> to move to the desired field • Enter the value [the digits typed will display] • Click <tab> to exit the field * Click SAVE to exit the page Note: Sometimes this procedure has to be repeated one or two times for it to work. Then, do NOT re-open this page. If you do, you will have to redo the workaround to restore the values, because they will have reverted to zeroes. When the workaround is used, the correct values appear on the printed pages in the PDF. If you re-open the page, the values turn to zeroes and appear as zeroes (or an empty field) on the printed forms. These problems affect both Renter Rebate returns and Homestead returns for which there is Lot Rent (the Allocated Rent from the LC-142, which is supposed to transfer to HS-122 Line B10, will transfer as zero unless the workaround is used. The problem has been reported to TaxSlayer.
0 Comments
If you are preparing Form 8936, Qualified Plug-in Electric Drive Motor Vehicle Credit, one of the required questions is "Tentative Credit from your manufacturer's certification."
If the owner doesn't have this information, you can find the amount to enter on the federal FuelEconomy web site. Note that if the taxpayer leased the vehicle, they do not get the credit. If the vehicle is leased, only the lessor and not the lessee, is entitled to the credit. Thanks to Vickie for this link. TaxSlayer has made some progress with Vermont's dual credits for CDC (24% vs 50%). If all of the CDC is from an Accredited VT facility or none is from an Accredited facility, it works. If there is a mixture of Accredited and non-Accredited care facilities, it does not work because it doesn't use the LICDC worksheet for line 31g. TaxSlayer added one question to the Vermont Basic Information page: It's an all-or-none question. If there is more than one facility on the 2441, it does not ask about each one. I will bring this to their attention. Like several of their other 'fixes,' I have not received a formal notice that the issue has been resolved. They are heading in the right direction, though the fix needs a little fine tuning. It should work for most returns.
The fix does take into account the taxpayer's AGI. If the taxpayer's AGI is less than the maximum [$30,000 (S, HoH) or $40,000 (MFJ, CUFJ)] and they used Accredited facilities only, they can claim the 50% refundable credit on line 31g. Otherwise, they get the 24% credit as a subtraction from their VT Income Tax on line 19 (not refundable), even if it's an Accredited facility. You can now get the 50% credit for taxpayers as long as they use Accredited facilities only and qualify income-wise. When there is more than one facility involved and not all are Accredited, you don't have the option to use the LICDC worksheet at the moment. TaxSlayer posted the following on their VITA-blog this morning. Take note of their recommendation and carefully review, before submitting, each return that was held during the 'outage.'
2/10/18 The issue has been resolved where the LC-142 was not generating in the VT return when completed. For any potentially impacted VT returns, we recommend opening each return from the Client List to allow the current calculations/updates to be applied prior to submitting these VT returns. The Issue: As most everyone is aware by now, Renter Rebate claims are not working because the Allocable Rent from LC-142 line 9 is not transferring to PR-141 line 3, thus yielding a rebate of $0. This is TaxSlayer Issue #1055; it's posted on their blog. I think (and have advised TaxSlayer) that this problem is also affecting the HS-122 when there is Lot Rent; the Allocable Rent does not transfer to HS-122 line B10 (see Caveat below).
Status: There is light at the end of the tunnel. In an e-mail this morning (Feb 8), TaxSlayer reported that "the fix has been made and is currently working its way through our internal testing. Assuming it passes each level of testing, the fix should be live early next week." Recommendations: (1) HOLD all returns that require an LC-142 until TaxSlayer has resolved the issue, though you can still prepare them now, using Peter's Procedure below (the preferred method) or the Workaround. (2) Carefully review, with Lisa Pinkus, any returns containing an LC-142 that were e-filed on/after Tuesday, Feb 6. History: I believe that the problem started Tuesday morning, Feb 6. Renter Rebate returns prepared and e-filed on/before Monday, Feb 5, are not affected. Any Renter Rebate or HS/Lot-Rent returns transmitted on/after Tuesday, Feb 6, are probably incorrect (no rent rebate or lot rent) and should be reviewed with Lisa Pinkus. "My 'good' return now shows no rebate": Don't panic. When you generate a PDF of a return, you are using the current version of the software--not the software that prepared the return. Tuesday (Feb 6), I generated a PDF for a return that I know went in with a rent rebate and the new (Feb 6) PDF had an Allocable Rent of zero on line 3 of the PR-141, thus a rent rebate of zero; further, no LC-142 was in the PDF. Caveat re Lot Rent: Lot Rent must be entered via the TaxSlayer LC-142 pages (so that a copy of the LC-142 is included in the E-file) and be allowed to transfer to HS-122 line B10 . The Allocable Rent (lot rent) will not appear on line 10 of the TaxSlayer HS-122 page but will appear in the PDF. If you enter an amount for the Lot Rent directly onto line 10 of TaxSlayer's HS-122 page, it will be ignored and may wipe out the value from the LC-142 as well. Peter's Procedure: This procedure (which is preferred over the workaround below), courtesy of Peter Cottrell, will allow you to keep preparing LC-affected returns while the issue persists. Adapt to suit your needs. Inform the taxpayer that there may be about a week's delay in submitting the Vermont return. Prepare full Federal and Vermont returns. Record the amount of Allocable Rent from each paper LC in a Note attached to the return. Hand calculate the expected Renter Rebate amount and inform taxpayer. File the Federal return only. When TaxSlayer has resolved the issue, return to the Vermont return in TaxSlayer. If the Renter Rebate amount agrees with the expected amount, file the Vermont return; otherwise, advise the taxpayer and decide how to proceed. If the taxpayer wants a printed copy of the Renter Rebate portion of their return, advise them that they can now come back to get it. Workaround: Prepare the Renter Rebate claim on myVTax. It will take extra time, but the taxpayer will not have to return. (Warning: You will need an e-mail address to submit the claim and it doesn't tell you that until you are ready to click the Submit button. Check with the taxpayer before you start to see that they have one.) Prepare full Fed and VT returns (you'll need the HI-144 info for myVTax). Review but do not approve; print the HI-144. Open myVTax.gov and prepare the Renter Rebate claim. Review, print, and submit the claim in myVTax. Return to TaxSlayer, delete the PR-141, review again, and mark Approved. E-file the federal and Vermont income tax returns. Comments welcome. A link to an ACA Exemptions Related to Income Tool can be found at Resources > Links and Tools
The link to a list of the known issues, their status and possible workarounds can be found on the Tax Year 2017 page.
John G reports that 3 of 6 returns that contained LC-142s were rejected with a validation error:
“The 'http://www.irs.gov/efile:CertNumber' element is invalid - The value '-' is invalid according to its datatype 'http://www.irs.gov/efile:CertIdType' - The Pattern constraint failed.” The other three were not rejected. We suspect the ECN field although none of the LC-142s in these six returns had an E-file Certificate Number. Has anyone else encountered this validation error? An update will be posted once the problem is understood. |
Archives
February 2020
Categories |