Amend federal when NY state was not sent in

[KIfyhaM]

How do I amend a federal return on ATX when the NY state was not sent in yet? I made a mistake and sent in the federal return with the extension. The return was not completed and I need to add more expenses and such which will affect the NY state return

[Pacun]

I don't have step by step solution but this is what I did with one return.

make a copy of the return that you sent to the IRS. 

Go back to the original one and add the expenses and efile NY.

Go back to the newly created copy, select amend return. This will create a copy again of the return.  Go to the copy of this return and open 1040, add the expenses, then go to 1040X, make sure the changes are correct, add the explanation and create the efile for Federal. Transmit the efile to Federal only. 

Make sure your client has copy of the original filed 1040, the NY filed return and the 1040X return.  I am not sure how NY or the IRS operates but most likely the IRS will send a note to NY and say... "this guy amended in 2020". NY might wonder in a couple of years why you didn't amend NY.

 

[Margaret CPA in OH]

I had a situation whereby I had submitted the federal return and, as always, held the state return.  In the interim, client provided additional information so I chose Amend return on the by now accepted federal return.  Nothing actually changed on the state return so it was not amended.  I submitted the 1040X and after acceptance, submitted the state return.  Client has copies of everything as do I in pdf form.  That was in February or so.  I've heard nothing and do not expect to either.

[Pacun]

3 hours ago, Margaret CPA in OH said:

I had a situation whereby I had submitted the federal return and, as always, held the state return.  In the interim, client provided additional information so I chose Amend return on the by now accepted federal return.  Nothing actually changed on the state return so it was not amended.  I submitted the 1040X and after acceptance, submitted the state return.  Client has copies of everything as do I in pdf form.  That was in February or so.  I've heard nothing and do not expect to either.

 

So, you submitted an amended return to the State without filing a regular return?

 

[KIfyhaM]

20 hours ago, Pacun said:

I don't have step by step solution but this is what I did with one return.

make a copy of the return that you sent to the IRS. 

Go back to the original one and add the expenses and efile NY.

Go back to the newly created copy, select amend return. This will create a copy again of the return.  Go to the copy of this return and open 1040, add the expenses, then go to 1040X, make sure the changes are correct, add the explanation and create the efile for Federal. Transmit the efile to Federal only. 

Make sure your client has copy of the original filed 1040, the NY filed return and the 1040X return.  I am not sure how NY or the IRS operates but most likely the IRS will send a note to NY and say... "this guy amended in 2020". NY might wonder in a couple of years why you didn't amend NY.

 

Thank you for you help, I will do that. I had surgery scheduled on the morning of the last day of taxes and I was overwhelmed. I feel bad for such a mistake as one client is already facing an audit. The IRS wanted to confirm her identity and held her return, so of course NYS decides to do a full on audit. Luckily, my client is very thorough and keeps he receipts scanned, placed in designated folders and in put created spreadsheets classified by tax forms. Making such a mistake worries me and it is something I've never done before. I don't want to lose my clients trust or have my integrity lowered by this. The clients I have came from accountants whom did not uphold their ethics and standards causing problems that I fixed which is why they stayed with me. but mistakes like this cane cause problems, especially since so much fraud during this covid pandemic. Any mistakes I have made, I've never made my clients pay for and never will. I don't want to lose clients or their respect over this and I will of course do full disclosure. I've been an accountant for almost 15 years, so I am worried how my client will view my work going forward. Do have any advice going forward?

[Margaret CPA in OH]

So, you submitted an amended return to the State without filing a regular return?

No, the state received only the original state return.  As mentioned, I hold the state returns until federal is accepted.  I received information after filing the federal which warranted an amended federal return.  After filing the amended federal return, the original state return was then filed.  As an original state return had not been previously filed, it was not appropriate to file an amended state return.

[Sara EA]

We had an incident when the person doing the efiling filed parents' return instead of son's (same first name as dad).  We hadn't started the parents yet, so the filed return was blank.  Imagine how many lines of "explanation for changes" that took.  The culprit no longer works for us (not her only mistake)....

I'm impressed that people are filing amendments already.  We have so many on extension that it will be months before we get to amendments.  Almost all of our state returns with unemployment that were filed before the law changed will have to be amended.  We will have to triage here:  Extensions where people will owe money first, then regular extensions if we have the info, then amendments for unemployment, and last amendments where people found another form or just thought up some deductions.  I guess the principle is initial filings get priority, then amendments not the fault of the taxpayer, then amends for those who already had their chance to do it right the first time.

I'm starting to worry about clients who had lowered income in 2020 but are back to work.  That advance child tax credit is going to be sent automatically starting in July.  Many will not be eligible based on their 2021 income and, unlike the stimulus payments, my understanding is that overpayments will have to be returned--making for a very unhappy 2021 tax season.  Ideally we can warn these clients to opt out of the auto deposits, but I don't know how to begin to identify them.  What are others doing?

[KIfyhaM]

UGH...I nkow this is off topis, but the 2020 ATX tax software keeps crashing which contributed to the topic at hand, has somehow deleted the amended return I paid for as I am doing Pay-Per-Return this season. I'm going to search through the software to figure out what happened and how to restore it. But when I try to another one it asks me to pay again. This season using ATX has been and is very frustrating with its constant crashing and freezing and other weird software issues that I have to report about. Any advice or suggestions?

[Margaret CPA in OH]

KlfyhaM, I would definitely call the rep/sales folks for this.  You may have better luck calling tech support first to see if you can get help restoring and, if not, get a case number to support your claim to not have to pay a second time.

I do a handful of clients not in the 3 states I have in the 1040 package and would be, well, quite upset if I had to pay a second time for a PPR after a software crash.  Fortunately I have never had a crash in over 20 years (jinxing myself?) but would be adamant about not paying twice for something not my fault.  Good luck!

[Pacun]

On 5/29/2021 at 10:00 AM, KIfyhaM said:

 Any advice or suggestions?

Make sure you treat your work machine as such. Do not install anything that is not work related, don't have those cool screen savers, toolbars and other programs. Do not open multiple clients or don't open ATX for 2019 and 2020 at the same time. Close all unneeded programs while doing taxes.

I have not had any ATX issue except that when printing big returns, it freezes from time to time.  I had that happened about 4 times during this tax season. 

[Slippery Pencil]

On 5/30/2021 at 8:44 PM, Pacun said:

Make sure you treat your work machine as such. Do not install anything that is not work related, don't have those cool screen savers, toolbars and other programs. Do not open multiple clients or don't open ATX for 2019 and 2020 at the same time. Close all unneeded programs while doing taxes.

If you have to do all that, you should use a different program.