Posting Individual Return status on the Web

After returns are e-filed at VITA sites, there are processes in place to contact the taxpayer to get it resolved, with no process in place to inform the taxpayer if the return is accepted. Some sites mail out 9325 acknowledgements to advise their clients that their returns have been accepted. However, look at it from the point of view of the taxpayer. How can they be sure that the return has been filed and accepted, and would it be possible that their return has been lost and/or ignored?

At the same time, what are the alternatives? We could place priority on getting out the 9325s, or inform the taxpayer by email when the return is accepted. At one site, a simple solution provides the status of the Federal and State returns accepted or rejected, with a return code that is made available to the taxpayer when the return is prepared. That way, the taxpayer can look up the information without having to login, enter multi-charactered passwords correctly, or worry about cookies or popups. The link to the return is on the home page of http://www.vita-volunteers.org

IRC 7216

At a meeting of VITA site coordinators of Santa Clara County held on January 22, 2009 at the offices of United Way of Silicon Valley, we were informed about the disclosure and use consents that need to be discussed with taxpayers whose returns we prepared.

The procedure was well described and laid out, but trying to implement it appeared to be pretty time consuming and subsequent guidance scheduled to be published may make it unnecessary.

Information provided to the IRS is meant to be kept confidential and not be made personally identifiable. This is understandable - since nobody likes their information to be made public. However, it would appear that numbers on AGI, refund amounts, tax credits, etc in aggregate that do not identify people personally should not be a big deal. After all, total revenues coming in to the IRS are compiled and published every year.

Secondly, if the information is to be used for the taxpayer for his or her benefit, the permission to do so needs to be sought at the time of the need with specific permission, and not require a record be kept of the decision at the time of preparing the return.

Third, I personally am wary of signing another piece of paper, and I suspect many others too. So explaining to them what they are signing (namely that they are authorizing us to use the information for statistical purposes, but granting permission in writing to use all of the information, and then telling them that they need to sign that so that we can continue providing service to them in the future - as was suggested during the meeting ) is different frwom what we are telling them that we will only report it is aggregate is bound to cause suspicion.

Fourth, being reasonably proficient with the language, the other site coordinators and I have a hard time accepting that this course of action is reasonable. When we have such doubts about its value, it becomes difficult if not impossible to train volunteers in what this is about, and have them try to convey to taxpayers with a language problem just takes away a lot of time from actually helping them with their returns.

For sites that are open during only the tax season, and are present only for preparing taxes and not providing other services, it would appear that the best course of action would be to not bring it up until the public as a whole is educated on the ramifications of what is going on.

What do other coordinators think? Please express your thoughts here by making comments to this posting.

Desktop TaxWise Training Webinar - Day 3 - Backup/Restore

The Backup/Restore capability is undergoing further changes. On the basic menu, you can start a new backup, or add to an existing backup. The first will ask to delete any backup files in the directory, and then create new backup files. The second will look for any existing backup in the directory, and will not proceed until there is one. This may be useful when one external drive is used to back up all entries to the transmitting workstation. In the past, backups from each workstation could be saved in different directories on the portable drive, and then restored individually.


When all is said and done, I have one other additional item on my wishlist - I would like the ability to create a new directory to put in backups; right now backup can only be to an existing directory.

The ability to back up to a floppy appears to be going away. However, it appears that some sites provide a backup of the client's return to the client for them to bring back the following year. When the ability to back up to a floppy goes away, it will be necessary to save the return onto a directory on a local drive, and then copy and paste to the floppy.

See Caveats See how to add comments

Desktop TaxWise Training Webinar - Day 2 - Tax Form Defaults

In the past, users could change their Tax Form defaults. It appears that for 2008, only the Admin account could change Tax Form defaults. It is not clear how this would be done. If only the Admin account could change it, it would put the tax form template in the Admin user's account. We hear that changes made by the Admin account would be automatically available to all other users, except those which have their own Tax Form defaults.

It would appear that a copy of a Tax Form default in the directory for a user is used if one exists, otherwise the copy in the Admin account directory is used. It also suggests that to revert back to the current Tax Form defaults may require the file in the user directory to be deleted.

See Caveats

Desktop TaxWise Training Webinar - Day 2 - Taxwise Explorer

The TaxWise explorer lets you move and/or copy files from one user TaxWise account to another, and to other directories. We can think of it as a Windows Explorer with some enhancements and restrictions relevant to TaxWise.

In fact Windows Explorer offers a quick means of managing files. For example, which TaxWise Explorer will not let you copy returns from one user to another, you can do so with Windows Explorer. However, the TaxWise database may get corrupted if you move returns around using the Windows Explorer.

See Caveats