Catching the rejects a return will come back with
Rejects are cheap to fix and expensive to receive, because the acknowledgement can arrive after the filing date has gone. A small set of codes accounts for most of them. IND-031-04 fires when the prior year adjusted gross income or the self select PIN does not match what the IRS holds, which happens routinely where the earlier return was amended. R0000-500-01 is a name and identification number pair disagreeing with the record on file. F8962-070 means a marketplace statement exists and the premium tax credit form was left off. Each one is checkable before transmission.
Everything is finished and the return still cannot be filed, because the signature authorisation has not come back.
The trial balance is the centre of this work, and most of the repeated labour is getting source material into a shape the trial balance can accept. Statements arrive as PDFs, receipts arrive as photographs, and bank data arrives through an aggregator that authenticates against a bank which changes its login flow without notice.
- UltraTax CS
- Drake Tax
- CCH Axcess
When this is the wrong thing to build
Pick something else if the software already runs its own diagnostics and the volume is low enough that a reject costs one phone call. Most packages catch the structural errors on their own. What they cannot check is anything needing outside data, such as a prior year figure the client no longer has a copy of.
The constraint that shapes it
Tax return information is governed by a statute that makes disclosure or use outside preparation a criminal matter, with a parallel civil penalty, and consent has to be obtained in a prescribed form naming the recipient and the purpose. More on how this sector works.
Run the rules of the other side first, so the submission does not come back. Read what this shape is, or start from one of these.
- Counting the clock that public marketing starts on a listing
- Checking for a signed buyer agreement before a tour is confirmed
- Catching a filing rejection before the clerk does
- Catching the invoice lines an e-billing gate will reject
- Checking that a technician may legally take the call
- Filing a backflow test report the purveyor will accept
- What does IRS reject code IND-031-04 mean and how do I fix it?
- How do I check prior year AGI before transmitting a return?
- Why does a return reject for a name and social security number mismatch?
- Can I catch a missing Form 8962 before the IRS rejects the return?
- How do I stop the same e-file reject repeating across many returns?
Back to accounting and bookkeeping, or see how this is priced and scoped.