This article will help resolve the following e-file critical diagnostic for Corporate, S Corp, Partnership and Fiduciary returns, where a federal and a state return are marked for electronic filing in Screen 1, or a state return by itself is marked for electronic filing and the federal return is unchecked.
- Taxpayer Authentication: The Signing Officer's first name, last name, and SSN are required for electronic filing. If a phone number is entered for the signing officer it must be a valid 10 digit number (no alpha characters). One of these elements is missing or invalid. Please go to the Electronic Filing screen,Taxpayer Authentication section and enter the required data. (ref. #47237 Corp) (ref. #47250 S-Corp) (ref. #47251 Par) (ref. #47252 Fid)
Beginning in the tax year 2016, the IRS added 32 new data elements as part of the IRS Security Summit. This was done to protect taxpayers and the tax system itself.
Among these new data elements in the e-file schema for business returns is a Taxpayer Authentication section; this includes the signing officer's first and last name, as well as Social Security numbers for business returns.
These taxpayer authentication input fields were added in the electronic filing sections:
- Fiduciary: Screen 2.2, Electronic Filing
- Corporate: Screen 4.2, Electronic Filing
- Partnership: Screen 4, Electronic Filing
- S Corporate: Screen 3.2, Electronic Filing
An additional return element of the signing officer's phone number, if entered, must be in a valid 10-digit format.
This information is asked for but not required for filing a federal, CA, FL, or TX business return. Business returns electronically filed with any other state require the first and last name, and officer's Social Security number to be part of the electronic file. Returns filed without this information will be rejected by the relevant agency. For this reason, an e-file critical diagnostic was added.
Federal, CA, FL and TX business returns
Since the business return taxpayer authentication fields aren't required for federal, CA, FL or TX business returns, the fields can be left blank, and if there are no other e-file critical diagnotics, the preparer can disable e-file error checking and file the return.
The states of CA, FL and TX haven't indicated that business returns filed without this information will be processed differently than returns containing the taxpayer authentication information. For additional information, refer to Disabling E-file Diagnostic Error Checking.
Remaining state business returns
For all other state business returns, the signing officer's name and Social Security number are required entries for the returns to be filed electronically. Enter the information required to clear the diagnostic and e-file the return.
