IRS and Tax Filing Issues

So, they won't send me my sales tax info because apparently, I don't have some fancy digital certificate? They're refusing to let me sign anything. My accountant is being helpful with everything else, but when it comes to the tax stuff, he’s totally useless. I've tried calling the IRS and the state tax office, but it's just dead silence on their end. I am losing my mind here. What do I even do? I'm clearly not some tech wizard. Help. And thanks.

Henry Edwards33 said:I finally pushed them through.
The workaround was to manually enter everything, and surprisingly, it worked.
My mistake was clicking that tiny little arrow in the top right corner and selecting the filing period for the entire 2012 fiscal year, when all I actually needed to do was click the standard Sales Tax tile.

Honestly, it felt like playing a game of chance. I kept repeating the same steps over and over; one form would go through without a hitch, while the next one would just fail for no reason. I just kept hammering away at it until it finally gave in. 😳

The weird part is, once you click that tile, the tax filing season defaults to Feb 2013, which makes zero sense.
Even if you pick the 2012 form, the tax filing season stays stuck on Feb 2013. 🙂

And if you hit that button in the bottom right (convert to VAT 2013), the dates
don't even change.
Honestly, looks like their whole VAT form system is just broken.

amberbadger17 said:So, they won't send me my sales tax info because apparently, I don't have some fancy digital certificate? They're refusing to let me sign anything. My accountant is being helpful with everything else, but when it comes to the tax stuff, he’s totally useless. I've tried calling the IRS and the state tax office, but it's just dead silence on their end. I am losing my mind here. What do I even do? I'm clearly not some tech wizard. Help. And thanks.

just email them... they told me to send everything in XML format once. looks like their software is just acting up again...

Richard Mitchell19 said:The weird part is, once you click that tile, the tax filing season defaults to Feb 2013, which makes zero sense.
Even if you pick the 2012 form, the tax filing season stays stuck on Feb 2013. 🙂

And if you hit that button in the bottom right (convert to VAT 2013), the dates
don't even change.
Honestly, looks like their whole VAT form system is just broken.

The form works fine; you just can't rely on that dropdown menu. You have to click the actual Sales Tax tile instead.
That dropdown feels like it was designed specifically to trip us up. 🤣

Oh, and one more thing—double-check that your tax amount matches the base amount. I ran into an issue where my numbers didn't align, and the system just kept rejecting the whole filing. Once I fixed the base amount, the form finally cleared and headed off to the IRS. 😳

Henry Edwards33 said:The form works fine; you just can't rely on that dropdown menu. You have to click the actual Sales Tax tile instead.
That dropdown feels like it was designed specifically to trip us up. 🤣

Oh, and one more thing—double-check that your tax amount matches the base amount. I ran into an issue where my numbers didn't align, and the system just kept rejecting the whole filing. Once I fixed the base amount, the form finally cleared and headed off to the IRS. 😳

There’s a Check button.
Every single time, it told me everything was fine—literally showed the message "Form data is correct."
But man, even after that, the error keeps popping up.

I have no clue, especially since everything started out so smooth. All that Sales Tax stuff... I even knocked out a massive pile of Sales Tax filings for February and all those ID forms. Everything went perfectly, then suddenly this happens 😕

Carol Ward3 said:Even if I put in a 1, it won't work, since apparently their math doesn't allow for that either. 🙂

Anyway, regardless of the outcome, I ended up just submitting it with a zero...

The thing is, since he gave me that same error message, I just entered $0.00 and it worked fine. Math wasn't an issue there. But then I tried putting in 100? Yeah, that failed immediately.

Raymond Martinez10, truly wise advice!

I think I might try adopting this same approach with $0.00.

If anyone else is still fighting with Sales Tax issues
I got this reply via email and it actually works 🙂
"...please try opening the XML file for the form you're submitting in the IRS app, then just type a single dash "-" (a hyphen or minus sign, don't use quotes) into the 'Notes' field."

"If you run into the same error again, just hit us back by replying to this email..."

I finally managed to print out that email containing all those links for the drivers and software downloads
(since he doesn't even realize there's an email waiting for him)

And now, it looks like my Wi-Fi is acting up again—or something similar.

The link provided in the email, , keeps throwing a "not found" error at me.

That link was supposed to let me download some sort of installation package.

So, I'm essentially back at square one; I can't decrypt the PIN. If anyone could lend a hand, I really need to have this sorted by Monday. 😳

Whenever I try to decrypt the PIN, I get a message saying "crypto device support is not ready."

I'm stuck wondering if I should keep fighting with this current setup, or if I'm simply missing that installation file.

Another quick update—those personal certificates still haven't installed themselves yet, and honestly, I'm a bit stumped on how to get the ball rolling...

I honestly can't believe I'm getting stuck at every single turn here

Does anyone happen to have an alternative link ? This one seems to be down for me right now... 🙂

honestly, why are you even stressing over this... just give their support line a call and let them walk you through it

I sent them an email, but I won't hear back until Monday—both from final support and the IRS.

Does anyone here know why this link isn't working? Also, any tips on how to fix those private certificates?

@vividhound60

Thanks, I sent them an email, but all they did was send me a link to some user manual. So, basically, I’m still stuck exactly where I started. 😬

I’ve already got my digital certificates and that USB security key installed—did all that setup about a year ago. If I uninstall everything now, God knows if I’ll actually be able to get it all back up and running. All those setup codes and passwords from the first time? Lost in the void. What am I even supposed to do then? And don't even get me started on trying to call them. I left messages, but nothing.

Look, if you're a total tech dinosaur, you're a tech dinosaur. That's just the reality. I'll admit it. "Cryptographic key" sounds about as familiar to me as ordering lunch in Mandarin. Hopefully, I can get this sorted next week; I'm strictly in "mom mode" all weekend. Thanks for the help regardless.

p.s. I seriously hate the new IRS website. 🙂

I’m certainly no computer science expert—far from it—so I’ve been running into my own share of tech headaches lately. Just wanted to offer a little sympathy to help you feel better 🙂
(Folks, please take a look above and lend a hand if you can)

Just got word back from support—they actually mistyped the filename in their email, writing fina_install.zip instead of fina-install.zip.

Man, there have been so many headaches this year dealing with the IRS digital portals and all those online filing systems... I started tackling this stuff last year and honestly, it was a breeze—it felt like my IT guy and I were totally in sync.

I actually have a quick question for you all. A friend of mine has some clients who aren't registered for sales tax, so they don't file any sales tax returns and haven't even set up an online portal with the government. Do you think she can just mail in their annual income tax forms and other paperwork from 2012 on paper, or is having that digital account mandatory for everything now? What’s your take?

I mean, I think it’s gotta have an EIN

It’s Saturday, about 12:30 PM here...
I’ve been trying to log into the IRS website, but I just can't get in. Every time I enter my password, it just kicks me right back to the home page like nothing happened. Is anyone else running into this issue today? I'm currently using Voyager 1.

silverbadger said:It’s Saturday, about 12:30 PM here...
I’ve been trying to log into the IRS website, but I just can't get in. Every time I enter my password, it just kicks me right back to the home page like nothing happened. Is anyone else running into this issue today? I'm currently using Voyager 1.

Try switching over to the Tools / Compatibility view and logging in again, or honestly, just try a different browser altogether.