Posts Tagged ‘Intuit’

You Mean My Checking Account Became a Savings Account?

Thursday, May 31st, 2018

In what is definitely an “Oops” moment, two tax software products from Intuit (Lacerte and Intuit ProConnect Online) incorrectly transmitted information for 2018 California estimated payments. Checking accounts became savings accounts in the transmittal and the payments were rejected:

As a result, electronically transmitted estimated tax payments (Form 540-ES) for tax year 2018 transmitted to us between January 23, 2018, and April 25, 2018, could have been rejected by your client’s financial institution. Future scheduled payments transmitted during this timeframe could be impacted as well.

We are collaborating with Intuit to identify impacted taxpayers and assist with resolution. Intuit sent letters directly to affected tax practitioners. We will waive FTB-imposed dishonored check fees on impacted taxpayers’ accounts and will give taxpayers an opportunity to submit first quarter estimated tax payment that will be considered timely.

We are not impacted by this, but if you’re a tax professional using either software package and are impacted by this you should have been contacted directly by Intuit (on or about May 9th). If you’re a taxpayer and your first quarter 2018 California estimated payment was not debited by the Franchise Tax Board and should have been, contact your tax professional immediately.

Kudos to the FTB in working with Intuit and giving impacted taxpayers time to get this resolved.

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Posted in California | Comments Closed

An Intuit of a Problem

Thursday, October 20th, 2011

I have more information on the coding issue: The problem lies with my software company, not the IRS. It seems that in a limited number of cases, my software (ProSeries, made by Intuit) returns a code “5” indicating that an electronic payment has been rejected when the actual transmission from the IRS is a code “4” indicating that the payment was accepted.

What is making me upset is that when I called Intuit this morning that they were aware of the problem and were working on it. They apparently do not consider this serious enough to proactively tell their user base about it. I asked for a supervisor to call me back; I have yet to get that call today.

Consider a hypothetical client, John Smith. Mr. Smith owes the IRS at the extension deadline $20,000. He chooses to have the funds electronically debited. His return is filed electronically and accepted, but the electronic funds payment is supposedly rejected. You tell Mr. Smith he needs to mail a check to the IRS for the $20,000 which he dutifully does. However, the payment was really accepted.

The client discovers two days later that the IRS has debited his account. Meanwhile, does he put a stop-payment on the check he sent the IRS (incurring fees from the IRS and his bank)? Or perhaps the check is cashed by the Treasury and now Mr. Smith is out an additional $20,000 for a few weeks. (The IRS will send a refund for the double-payment, but Mr. Smith loses the use of that money for a while.) Or perhaps the check bounces as Mr. Smith only had $30,000 in his bank account. Is Intuit going to cover Mr. Smith’s fees?

As best as I can determine, I had four clients impacted by this. I assume there are hundreds if not thousands impacted nationally. It will be very interesting to see how Intuit responds to this major issue.

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Posted in Tax Preparation | Comments Closed