IRS and Tax Filing Issues

Taylor Campbell4 said:Do we actually need to register our business location if we aren't required to handle fiscalization ourselves—since we only use Virmanski software

It seems it’s only necessary for those under the fiscalization mandate. If you aren't processing any cash transactions, I believe you don't need to worry about registering the physical space.

I’m hitting a wall trying to register my commercial space under business code 4771. Every time I verify the data, the system forces me to enter a mandatory secondary activity. It's stuck in a loop. Any ideas? Thanks.

Brenda Chase3 said:I have a question for my fellow bookkeeping service owners out there: regarding the data submission for business premises and similar details, are you submitting this information for every client listed on your digital certificate (since most of our services already hold power of attorney for the IRS), or are you leaving it up to the clients to handle it themselves? How have you structured your workflow or what is your long-term strategy here? Also, are you planning to charge an additional fee for handling this specific task? I’m hearing all sorts of different approaches from people, so I want to make sure I figure out the best way to handle this ahead of time.

The software providers actually let you do this through their own apps anyway. If a client has 300 retail locations, they'd each have to do it themselves—there’s no way a small firm with 20 to 50 clients could handle that manual workload. All this data is already sitting right there with the IRS, so this whole mess is just more proof that the people building these government platforms are totally incompetent. We pay taxes for these systems, we do the work for them, and yet nobody's paying us extra for the headache.

No matter what I try to input, the system keeps forcing me to enter a primary occupation. I honestly don't get why this is even an issue.

Finally cracked it

Quick question. My commercial space just got verified. Does that mean I’m done, or am I supposed to be filing some specific paperwork somewhere to make it official?

I realize I’m not offering any direct solutions here, but I felt compelled to share this link to an excellent article along with the discussion underneath it. It perfectly captures the absolute nightmare we're all dealing with because of their application—especially for those of us managing complex client relationships, much like the author of the piece itself.
https://www.nytimes.com/article/tech-banking-app-frustrations-letter-1179233

https://www.nytimes.com/article/tech-banking-app-frustrations-letter-1179233/comments

It keeps telling me that we aren't maintaining our own books, even though we definitely are! I've been looking all over for a way to fix this setting, but I can't seem to find any option within my profile to update it... I wonder if anyone might be able to help me out?

It keeps telling me that we aren't maintaining our own books, even though we actually are! I've been looking all over to figure out how to fix this, but I just can't seem to find an option within my profile settings to update it... I wonder if anyone might be able to help me out?

I'm seeing all sorts of weird errors on my end too, so I went ahead and sent an inquiry over to the helpdesk via email, though I haven't heard anything back yet.
One of the main issues is that the system keeps labeling me as the "authorized recipient for official correspondence" for about two dozen different clients, even though several of those businesses have shuttered, some have switched to a different CPA, a handful of corporations were liquidated ages ago, and a few sole proprietors have actually passed away and closed their shops...
Honestly, I really don't see why it's my responsibility to go in and scrub their databases just because they didn't bother to input the data correctly in the first place. I have absolutely no desire to perform unpaid labor for them; I'm not interested in doing work that people get paid a full salary to do, much like how they aren't being paid to handle my bookkeeping entries for me.
And frankly, I've had quite enough of these bank representatives sending entrepreneurs straight to their accountants just to ask questions they should be able to answer themselves, or my local Chase branch sending clients my way to fill out loan applications that the bank is already charging several hundred dollars to process.
I’m just going to sit tight and wait for them to fix their own databases properly, or perhaps for some new regulation to come down the line mandating that I do it all myself—for free, of course.

I’ve been thinking about our fiscal compliance procedures lately. I was actually away on vacation recently, and while I was out, some colleagues of mine issued a transaction receipt instead of a proper fiscalized receipt for a customer who paid in cash. Once they realized the mistake, they voided the transaction receipt and issued a new fiscal one, but there's a bit of a discrepancy: the invoice date is listed as July 7th, even though the actual fiscalization didn't happen until July 10th. I suppose I'm wondering if this constitutes a formal error on our part. Usually, I would just go ahead and void the whole thing myself, which means I'd be held responsible for the discrepancies in the accounts and the cash drawer, but since I wasn't around, I didn't step in. Now I'm feeling a little uncertain about whether I should just leave things as they are or if we need to take further action, especially since the sequence of the invoices remains perfectly intact without any gaps in between.

http://postimg.org/image/tom6j9bav
Here’s a screenshot from the IRS portal...

Is there any way to actually pull an employee's W-2 card through here?
Every time I plug in the SSN, I just get this error saying "Taxpayer has no record or account is closed."
My permissions are set to "All Electronic Services," so that shouldn't be the issue...

Does anyone know how to grab an employee's tax info via the app without hitting a dead end?

So, looking at this new tax portal... it’s still missing the most basic forms. For instance, they still haven't even implemented the income tax filing forms for small business owners?

I mean, seriously, what on earth are they actually doing over there? They've been running this digital tax system for a decade now—ten whole years—and they *still* haven't managed to build one simple form? Is anyone actually working?

Frankly, I have zero intention of correcting their data entry errors just because they were too lazy to input information properly in the first place. I refuse to perform labor that someone else is being paid to handle; I am not about to work for free simply because they failed to fulfill their basic responsibilities in the ledger.
I am also completely fed up with bank representatives sending business owners to accountants just to ask questions they should already be able to answer themselves. It’s infuriating when a bank representative sends a client my way to fill out a loan application—an application the bank then charges several hundred dollars to process.
I will sit back and wait for them to actually populate their own databases correctly, or until some official regulation is passed mandating that I do it for them. And knowing how things go, they'll expect me to do it for free again.

John Doe, you hit the nail on the head, silverbadger. They seem to think we accountants are just easy targets they can exploit for free labor. It isn't just the IRS or the big banks; even Social Security ends up dumping their paperwork on us. We spend all our time manually entering data that should have been automated, leaving us with no time to actually manage the books. We're essentially doing their jobs for nothing, and it's a total scam. I honestly wonder why there isn't a more aggressive professional association for accountants out there to call out how badly we're being screwed over.

Even if some advocacy group decided to step up and launch a formal petition or some kind of organized protest, the response would be exactly what we’ve come to expect: they’d just shrug and tell us that those are the rules, period!
Another thing is that none of the employees working within any of these government agencies actually pass along the frustrations that entrepreneurs are constantly venting about to their supervisors. If just five clerks would report our grievances to their bosses, then those five bosses would tell their directors, who would inform the department heads, and so on... maybe then we might see a glimmer of actual change. But instead, everyone stays silent because they are terrified of losing their jobs, leaving us taxpayers stuck in this endless loop. It’ll probably take someone finally reaching their absolute breaking point before anyone actually does anything about it.
I honestly see stories in the news every single day about people losing their minds because they were bounced from one window to another, only to be sent right back to where they started because of some missing piece of paperwork. And yet, according to the regulations, if a government agency has the ability to access a piece of data themselves, we shouldn't even be required to provide it.

PS The IRS and Social Security were perfectly synced up until Social Security failed to pay the fee for access to that shared data. Once that happened, the IRS just shut off the tap, and suddenly you’re forced to walk into the IRS office with proof of income that Social Security used to be able to pull instantly. The Onion

I agree that civil servants should be relaying this information directly to management, but let’s be honest—they aren't going to do it. What we actually need is an organized association of accountants to step up, because the current situation is beyond ridiculous. We are completely overwhelmed, yet there isn't a single soul in charge who understands the scope of our workload or how much this profession has devolved. To make matters worse, whenever we call the IRS help line, they are utterly clueless; we've had to correct their misinformation regarding fiscalization multiple times ourselves. And of course, they still collect a full paycheck.
The absolute worst part is when we register employees through the electronic pension system and then have to sit around for days waiting for a confirmation that should be instant. It’s just one single click on their end! Is that supposed to be normal? Employees are constantly terrified that we haven't registered them, but we can't even provide certified documentation from the Democratic Party until some genius decides to finally click a button. They have gone out of their way to make our lives as difficult as possible, leaving us with nothing to do but vent to one another. The Onion, I absolutely agree with you!

Tintinila79, look, we have all these different associations and interest groups out there, but honestly, what’s the point when nobody actually listens to us? They just churn out these regulations without consulting any actual experts or even the people who are stuck on the front lines having to implement them—and that’s despite us having the Office of Management and Budget sitting right there!
I've been running my own business in the accounting sector since 1990, and I can tell you firsthand that we have never seen this much endless record-keeping, this mountain of reports and paperwork, or this constant barrage of inspections and penalties! And then they have the nerve to tell us to go out and support small businesses. It really isn't any wonder that everyone is flocking toward government jobs—the pay is decent, checks always arrive on time, and you’ve got total job security right up until retirement!

I filled out every single field in this commercial lease application form, yet the Save button is completely unresponsive. Just wonderful. After wasting an absolute eternity grinding through this thing 🤦, I’m stuck. When I hit the validation check on all those various windows, does it flag anything? No. Not a single error message appears.

The Back and Top buttons next to the Save button work just fine. So, what am I missing here? What am I doing wrong? They churned out fifty pages of instructions, yet they can't even manage to make a system where you can actually save your data.

It’s pathetic. They build these half-baked, useless digital forms for data they probably already have sitting in some other database anyway.

And one more thing—what is the deal with the spaces that aren't even in use anymore? The system keeps listing them as active and unverified in my business premises list. Am I supposed to "close" them out and remove them? And if so, how the hell am I supposed to do that?

Arthur Thomas5 said:I filled out every single field in this commercial lease application form, yet the Save button is completely unresponsive. Just wonderful. After wasting an absolute eternity grinding through this thing 🤦, I’m stuck. When I hit the validation check on all those various windows, does it flag anything? No. Not a single error message appears.

The Back and Top buttons next to the Save button work just fine. So, what am I missing here? What am I doing wrong? They churned out fifty pages of instructions, yet they can't even manage to make a system where you can actually save your data.

It’s pathetic. They build these half-baked, useless digital forms for data they probably already have sitting in some other database anyway.

And one more thing—what is the deal with the spaces that aren't even in use anymore? The system keeps listing them as active and unverified in my business premises list. Am I supposed to "close" them out and remove them? And if so, how the hell am I supposed to do that?

Regarding that second point, you just enter the date the space was vacated; the catch is you can't pick a retroactive date—it only lets you select the day you actually filed with the IRS.
As for that SAVE button, I have no idea why it’s ghosting you. Maybe a field was missed? It works fine for me whenever I submit an update 🤔

I’m not sure if I’ve completely missed something here—I’m a small business owner using my personal login credentials.
Previously, there was a direct link to the Department of Defense portal via the main government site, which allowed me to access my tax records and FARC files.

Then, for about two days, that Department of Defense link went down due to some error with the NIA authentication service. Now, the link isn't even on the main portal anymore; instead, there's this "e-tax" section (it might have been there before, but I could never get it to work).
So, I finally sat down to poke around the e-tax portal today. It looks like—if I’m reading this right—I can actually file forms and everything else directly through there. Does this mean I can really submit a sales tax return myself without needing any extra digital certificates? I've already made arrangements with my accountant to handle this, so I'm certainly not trying to DIY it just yet—but I wanted to ask since anyone here might know—because when I log in through the main portal, all these options seem wide open to me.
I can see sections for submitting requests, filing forms, and so on; the sales tax form even opens up for me. So, does anyone know if I could actually hit "submit" on that form without having to go out and buy an additional security certificate?