Can a trust company as trustee for deceased taxpayer sign Form 1310 and e-file the returns for Form 1040

[jewbak]

Deceased taxpayer has a refund on final tax return and the trustee is a trust company with EIN.  The Form 1310 seems to accept social security number for a individual person claiming the refund and doesn't seem to accept EIN of a trust fiduciary?  So this mean I cannot e-file the final tax returns with an EIN.  I prefer to e-file but if the program doesn't allow it because of this issue.  Looks like I must paper file the returns.  Is there a solution to this problem?  

[sjrcpa]

The Personal Representative of the Estate is supposed to sign the return. This may or may not be the same as the Trustee of his trust.

[BobKamman]

@sjrcpa 

But there's probably no estate and no personal representative -- the whole idea of a living trust is to avoid probate.  (Sometimes it works, and sometimes the trust company ends up making more money.)

Most large trust companies have their own in-house tax preparers these days.  Some still farm out the work to the lawyer who wrote the trust, who may farm the returns out to a practitioner who either works for the lawyer or worked for the deceased.  

It's OK to ask the trust officer if the problem has been encountered before, and how it was solved.