I have submitted my Federal and state Income Tax filing electronically for many years. This year, I was forced to mail my returns as I had done many years ago. I checked with my local post office clerk and was informed that a big increase in mail-in tax filings was obvious. I suspect that the reason my electronic returns were rejected also is the reason many other returns were rejected and as a result forced other taxpayers to mail their returns.
I strongly suspect that this is how the IRS electronic return rejections transpired. Someone decided that an additional layer of identification was required to make sure that it was the real person filing the return. The new ID method was to have the filer provide the AGI (Adjusted Gross Income) figure from the previous year’s tax return. After submitting my return with a correct AGI figure, the IRS rejected my return without an explanation. state logging into my IRS account, I discovered that the rejection was due to failure to enter my spouses AGI on our joint return. Anyone who understands how income taxes are calculated and what figures appear on which forms would know that the AGI on joint returns is a combined figure for both taxpayers and that an individual AGI does not exist. There was no way to submit a nonexistent figure on any form, so my electronically submitted tax return became impossible. The rejection by the IRS of my federal return caused my software return provider to place my electronic state return submission on hold, so I was then required to mail that return.
I can only show that this rejection was on my simple 1049-SR form submission and may or may not apply to other scenarios. Mail-in returns require manual entry into the state and federal systems. The more groups that have their returns rejected; the more people will be required to provide the manual data entry.
Update to my story:
Thanks to the many comments to my story, I have now been able to identify more closely how and why the rejection of my electronic tax return was rejected. Like most system failures it occurs when seemingly unrelated changes are made to one system that directly affects a different system but is ignored.
The key clue was provided by chopper: “this is similar to how you have to verify this information when using the IRS free file or free fillable forms system. the instructions say if you’re married filing jointly to put combined AGI in both boxes, i.e. the same number in the taxpayer and spouse boxes. just did that filing online with the IRS”
This tells me that the IRS free file software did not create a separate form for joint filers and for joint filers filing as single filers. The return forms always create two different fields for AGI. Only one is utilized for joint filers. The ID checking software that checks for an AGI number was built or modified to expect information in two fields of data. To prevent return info from being submitted for examination, the IRS added the following instructions according to Chopper.
If you’re married filing jointly to put combined AGI in both boxes, i.e. the same number in the taxpayer and spouse boxes.
This failed to account for the fact that the historic method of entering data by taxpayers and their tax preparers came from the official joint filer forms that had a single field for AGI. Telling the taxpayers to submit duplicate AGI numbers is useless since the forms submitted did not have a field on which to submit the data.
To solve the present anomaly, there are two possible scenarios. Eliminate or modify the Joint filer forms to include a new duplicate AGI field and hope the taxpayer or the preparer software fills it in. The other method would be to correct the IRS ID checking software to recognize that the joint returns have combined AGI numbers.
Now the problem is who is going to tell the IRS management they made a mistake, get them to admit the mistake, and correct their mistake. Anyone?
