IRS and Tax Filing Issues

silverbadger said:Brenda Chase3
Were those PDF attachments actually signed? I’m asking because last year my caseworker at the IRS refused to accept one of my documents just because it wasn't digitally signed and stamped with an official seal. This weekend, I’m planning to dive into how to properly sign a PDF now that I have my FINA card and Acrobat ready to go. Based on some guides I found on the Adobe website, Acrobat Reader should theoretically allow you to sign things, but I honestly couldn't figure out how to make it work no matter what I tried.
Oh, and one more thing—if the documents are signed using the FINA card, am I correct in thinking I wouldn't even have to pay the public filing fee? That's what I gathered from reading about it over on NotesNet.

Regarding the GFI-POD for FINA, I sent over all those notes, decisions, and other files through my FINA card last year, and they didn't need separate signatures. Once you have authorization, the system treats it as if everything is already signed. It's just like when you submit an RS-m; you're effectively signing off on whatever you send every single time. So, there's no need to go through the extra step of signing individual attachments. Just convert them to PDF and click-click. 🙂 That covers everything regarding FINA and GFI.
As for the IRS... I suspect they won't require it either, though I won't say for certain since this is a relatively new process for them. It seems logical that it shouldn't be necessary. All of my attachments went through the IRS portal without any issues, and nothing was ever flagged or held up because an attachment lacked a specific signature. But we'll just have to wait and see how things play out with the IRS.

The public filing fee is waived for users who submit GFI for public record via E-Fine. Basically, if you're an accounting firm and you have authorization for multiple clients, none of them have to pay anything because you're utilizing E-Fine. The only ones stuck paying are the people physically carrying data to FINA on a CD or a thumb drive.

Richard Howard55 said:That’s exactly how I read it! If those certificate verification apps don't play nice together, you could just end up staring at a loading icon spinning forever. 😵
This snippet is basically just some part of an explanation from a Police Department officer regarding why that loading wheel might be stuck.

Fine, I guess I'll give that a shot. I use all sorts of different cards and security sticks, and everything has worked fine on this same computer until now... But tomorrow, I'm going to try logging into the IRS from a different machine and see what happens. Because this is exactly what's happening to me—that damn loading icon just keeps spinning and it's driving me absolutely insane.

Brenda Chase3 said:Regarding the GFI-POD for FINA, I sent over all those notes, decisions, and other files through my FINA card last year, and they didn't need separate signatures. Once you have authorization, the system treats it as if everything is already signed. It's just like when you submit an RS-m; you're effectively signing off on whatever you send every single time. So, there's no need to go through the extra step of signing individual attachments. Just convert them to PDF and click-click. 🙂 That covers everything regarding FINA and GFI.
As for the IRS... I suspect they won't require it either, though I won't say for certain since this is a relatively new process for them. It seems logical that it shouldn't be necessary. All of my attachments went through the IRS portal without any issues, and nothing was ever flagged or held up because an attachment lacked a specific signature. But we'll just have to wait and see how things play out with the IRS.

The public filing fee is waived for users who submit GFI for public record via E-Fine. Basically, if you're an accounting firm and you have authorization for multiple clients, none of them have to pay anything because you're utilizing E-Fine. The only ones stuck paying are the people physically carrying data to FINA on a CD or a thumb drive.

Your filing wasn't rejected because the IRS doesn't actually have the capacity to verify whether every single document has been manually signed or stamped.
I suspect this is just down to the personal whims of individual agents when files are sent to the archives. For some, it doesn't matter at all, whereas others insist on having every scrap of paper signed and stamped.
Personally, I am going to send mine without signatures or stamps to save myself the time of scanning everything. If anyone actually demands it, I'll just send the client's paperwork later. 😁
I agree with you—the signature and stamp are completely redundant.

wiredmarlin41 said:Your filing wasn't rejected because the IRS doesn't actually have the capacity to verify whether every single document has been manually signed or stamped.
I suspect this is just down to the personal whims of individual agents when files are sent to the archives. For some, it doesn't matter at all, whereas others insist on having every scrap of paper signed and stamped.
Personally, I am going to send mine without signatures or stamps to save myself the time of scanning everything. If anyone actually demands it, I'll just send the client's paperwork later. 😁
I agree with you—the signature and stamp are completely redundant.

Come on, please tell me you aren't seriously suggesting that a handwritten signature scanned into a PDF is somehow more legit than a digital signature... I don't think I've ever heard anything like that before.

Jack Young said:Come on, please tell me you aren't seriously suggesting that a handwritten signature scanned into a PDF is somehow more legit than a digital signature... I don't think I've ever heard anything like that before.

That isn't my point. This isn't about which method is more "authentic"—it's about catering to the whims of the bureaucrats.
To me, those officials are practically deities. If I just give them exactly what they want, maybe they'll leave me alone and stop giving me such a massive headache.😁

wiredmarlin41 said:That isn't my point. This isn't about which method is more "authentic"—it's about catering to the whims of the bureaucrats.
To me, those officials are practically deities. If I just give them exactly what they want, maybe they'll leave me alone and stop giving me such a massive headache.😁

Which specific agents are you dealing with?
When you mentioned scanned documents earlier, I assumed we were talking about those non-standard files we upload through the web portal that need to be in PDF format.

Jack Young said:Which specific agents are you dealing with?
When you mentioned scanned documents earlier, I assumed we were talking about those non-standard files we upload through the web portal that need to be in PDF format.

Regarding the specific clerk mentioned by BlindDog in post 465🙂

Brenda Chase3 said:I wanted to jump in and give you some firsthand insight on this situation. We actually filed our final return this past Friday—well, we were a little early, haha—and I can confirm that the attachments feature is working perfectly fine. The key is making sure everything is saved as a PDF; once you hit send, the system confirms they’ve been submitted and everything looks good on our end. The only real headache is that because of where we are located, some of the agents over at the IRS simply have no clue that you can submit everything digitally through the online portal. When we sent ours off, I gave my agent a call just to double-check that she could see the files. I told her we had included all the attachments, but she was totally baffled—she honestly had no idea that attaching PDFs was even an option. Since the local office hasn't updated their internal software to handle the 2012 filings yet, she couldn't actually pull anything up to verify. Eventually, she pulled up the official instruction manual and realized that everything is supposed to be routed through the IRS electronic system now. We made sure to include the gross balance sheet and the reconciliation between the corporate tax and sales tax forms, all in PDF format. Now, I won't hear back from her regarding whether she successfully processed everything until sometime in April.

Hey, could you explain that bolded part a bit more? I'm trying to figure out how you got it to work. I've been poking around the IRS website looking at the sales tax forms, and that "Attachments" section is just grayed out for me. It won't let me click anything. I'm not actually filing a year-end return yet—haven't even finished it—but I'm just curious... what do I need to do to get the upload button to actually react?

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That is exactly how I interpreted the text! If the various applications used to verify certificates aren't fully compatible with one another, you can end up stuck staring at a spinning loading icon for eternity. Does anyone actually test for these kinds of conflicts before release? It’s a total disaster waiting to happen. 😵
The officer from the Police Department provided an explanation regarding what might be causing those little squares to spin. Is it even possible that we are dealing with such a technical glitch? Or is there something more fundamental at play here? He laid out his reasoning, attempting to pinpoint the exact source of the rotation. It’s all quite speculative, isn't it? One has to wonder if these theories actually hold any water when you look at the mechanics of the situation.

Just install ActivClient Agent version 6.2 and everything will work perfectly. Why bother overcomplicating things? Just get the right version installed and the problem solves itself.

The IRS website is acting up again. Can anyone dig up a direct line for them? I’ve been trying that toll-free number, 800-829-1040, but it’s just dead air. Does anyone have a better way to reach them?

Kimberly Harris6 said:Fine, I guess I'll give that a shot. I use all sorts of different cards and security sticks, and everything has worked fine on this same computer until now... But tomorrow, I'm going to try logging into the IRS from a different machine and see what happens. Because this is exactly what's happening to me—that damn loading icon just keeps spinning and it's driving me absolutely insane.

It works on the other computer!!!! Apis😘😘😘😘😘😘 You seriously saved my sanity

wanderingseal14 said:The IRS website is acting up again. Can anyone dig up a direct line for them? I’ve been trying that toll-free number, 800-829-1040, but it’s just dead air. Does anyone have a better way to reach them?

Man, they are notoriously hard to reach by phone. Honestly, I think your best bet might be to just shoot them an email describing what's going on. In my experience, they've always been pretty quick to get back to me via email.

I’m pretty sure everyone who was dealing with those recent headaches got an email from the IRS saying everything is finally sorted out. They basically told us to just ignore all those previous instructions because they’ve supposedly fixed everything—though, honestly, I wouldn't hold my breath.
All the forms for my clients seem to be going through without a hitch, except for the sales tax filings. It keeps throwing an error whenever I try to submit them, and it's acting like it can't even accept the forms into the database. It’s really weird, too, because it works fine for some clients but completely fails for others.

Does anyone have any bright ideas on how to get around this? I feel like I'm losing my mind here.

Kimberly Harris6 said:It works on the other computer!!!! Apis😘😘😘😘😘😘 You seriously saved my sanity

Everything went through instantly on my second computer too.

Sam Wells5 said:I’m pretty sure everyone who was dealing with those recent headaches got an email from the IRS saying everything is finally sorted out. They basically told us to just ignore all those previous instructions because they’ve supposedly fixed everything—though, honestly, I wouldn't hold my breath.
All the forms for my clients seem to be going through without a hitch, except for the sales tax filings. It keeps throwing an error whenever I try to submit them, and it's acting like it can't even accept the forms into the database. It’s really weird, too, because it works fine for some clients but completely fails for others.

Does anyone have any bright ideas on how to get around this? I feel like I'm losing my mind here.

I haven't tried using my old machine today, but a colleague called me after trying to submit hers—she was practically dizzy from the frustration...

Jack Young said:Hey, could you explain that bolded part a bit more? I'm trying to figure out how you got it to work. I've been poking around the IRS website looking at the sales tax forms, and that "Attachments" section is just grayed out for me. It won't let me click anything. I'm not actually filing a year-end return yet—haven't even finished it—but I'm just curious... what do I need to do to get the upload button to actually react?

In order to submit any attachments, you first have to successfully file the Sales Tax return itself. Once the return has been submitted, you head over to the "View Filed Returns" section and select the specific filing you just completed. If you click that little arrow next to it, a menu will pop up with all your options (like open, view, download, etc.). From there, you can select "Attachments," and only then will the system allow you to upload your PDFs and send them off. Essentially, you can't attach anything until the primary form has been officially filed.

Is anyone else running into a headache with FINRA because of Java 1.7? Here’s the situation: the IRS website refuses to function unless I have Java 1.7 installed, and when I use that version, everything seems to run smoothly there. However, once I switch to 1.7, FINRA won't process my digital signature on the RS forms, which means I can't submit them. If I roll back to Java 1.6, FINRA works perfectly and everything goes off without a hitch, but then the IRS site just breaks because they strictly require version 1.7.
Has anyone dealt with this specific conflict before, and more importantly, how did you fix it? I've been trying to get a hold of someone at FINRA, but I've been sitting on hold for 20 minutes already. 🙂

So, I just got an email asking me to be patient while they work on a system update. They’re basically promising that all the glitches will be smoothed out soon. Honestly, if anyone knows how much I value my peace and quiet, you know I can be pretty patient when I want to be 🤣

Somebody let me know when this thing is actually up and running—I’m genuinely worried my PC is going to end up flying out the window if I try to force it 🙂🙂🙂

Raymond Martinez10 said:Somebody let me know when this thing is actually up and running—I’m genuinely worried my PC is going to end up flying out the window if I try to force it 🙂🙂🙂

Have you even attempted to install the Microsoft Agent ver. 6.2 yet?

Drop a link where I can find that 🤷