1040 Electronic Payment Not Approved

[TaxMom12]

I submitted a request for electronic payment of a taxpayers 2019 liability and post dated it to March 2, 2020.  I received the e-file acknowledgement and it states the "IRS did not approve your electronic payment of the balance due.  Be sure to pay the tax due by check or credit card". 

Does anyone know why they wouldn't have accepted an electronic payment? 

[Just-Lisa-Now-]

We saw this happen last year in ProSeries, but the electronic payment DID end up being made...so I would call the Electronic Withdrawal phone number and inquire as to whether its actually scheduled or not to be sure.

Cancellations, Errors and Questions:

• In the event Treasury causes an incorrect amount of funds to be withdrawn from a bank account, Treasury will return any improperly transferred funds.
• Once your return is accepted, information pertaining to your payment, such as account information, payment date, or amount, cannot be changed. If changes are needed, the only option is to cancel the payment and choose another payment method.
• Call IRS e-file Payment Services 24/7 at 1-888-353-4537 to inquire about or cancel your payment, but please wait 7 to 10 days after your return was accepted before calling.
• Cancellation requests must be received no later than 11:59 p.m. ET two business days prior to the scheduled payment date.
• If a payment is returned by your financial institution (e.g., due to insufficient funds, incorrect account information, closed account, etc.) the IRS will mail a Letter 4870 to the address we have on file for you, explaining why the payment could not be processed, and providing alternate payment options.
• In the event your financial institution is unable to process your payment request, you will be responsible for making other payment arrangements, and for any penalties and interest incurred.
• Contact your financial institution immediately if there is an error in the amount withdrawn.

[TaxMom12]

Thank you for the reply, Lisa! I will phone to confirm but that's encouraging.  

[Just-Lisa-Now-]

I think it asks for the bank account number when you call (its automated) so have that in front of you as well as the dollar amount.

[fish]

Just had my second return that happened this way. Concerned that all of the returns will be this way. Anyone know what the problem is? 

[Just-Lisa-Now-]

We saw it happen last year for ProSeries, not sure it was ever acknowledged or addressed by Intuit...or if they had any part in it to be honest.  Never saw an explanation anywhere either.

I never schedule a payment after April 10th...just in case something doesn't happen, we still have time to mail a check.

I verified multiple ones over the phone when it started happening, they were all scheduled...didnt seem to have any that were actually not approved.

[fish]

that can be a problem. This was schedule for February 28. In both case they were scheduled before April 15. Like you most of my clients want to see this clearing the bank well before April 15. Seems to be a problem here, I am on hold with Lacerte to see if they have any information on this issue. Thank you for your reply. It takes a village ! 

[fish]

I just got off the phone with telephone support at Lacerte. They are investigating this issue and needing input from the community as to details, various banks, credit unions etc. Where payments actually taken out (they are trying to determine if the issue is within Lacerte or if the issue is communication between Trea and Lacerte. Any additional information the community can supply to Lacerte will help programs identify and resolve the issue quicker. Thank all for input to Lacerte. Thank you. 

[Ursula23]

We recevied the same thing. I called support and they said it is a defect in the program and it would be fixed in an update. That was over a week ago.

[Just-Lisa-Now-]

Are the payments actually being accepted/scheduled though, and the message is false?  or are they truly not accepted ?

[Ursula23 · Accepted solution]

Support told me they checked in their e-file system and saw no rejection or message from the IRS on the client I called about. They said all bank info was sent to the IRS. The message makes no sense as the IRS would not attempt to withdraw tax until the scheduled date. Hopefully they will fix it soon.

[fish]

anyone filed a return to see if this has been "fixed" in the last two updates that were received? 

cannot locate from Lacerte that it has been corrected. Sitting here waiting to file returns. Thanks for input.

[Ursula23]

Yes it has been fixed. I filed a return and the language on the e-file acceptance letter is back to normal indicating the amount will be withdrawn on the specified date. It did not update the letter for any previously filed returns.

[Stormy12]

The problem is not fixed.  Two returns were not approved for 1040 electronic payment today. Hope Lacerte can fix this soon.  Yesterday's returns had no problems.

[fish]

Community-- please respond to Lacerte, send a service request through your Lacerte tax program, great to report on the community board but I don't know that it reaches those who can fix the problem  and may be designed to reach the community more.  I talked with Lacerte this morning and very few people have raised this as an issue and thus they are looking for where the glitch is happening, but I get the sense this it is not really an issue. I send the acceptance letter to clients I guess a lot of  practices do not do this.  We can all help ourselves by letting  LACERTE know what the issue is and where and when it  happened This is best done through the Lacerte Communication  Go to TOOLS, COMMUNICATION and SERVICE REQUEST to report the issue. Post on this site as well, we can never get too many posts. Thanks to all who have posted on this issue. 

[Just-Lisa-Now-]

Is it happening to ALL returns or only some?  This was an issue last year in ProSeries, wasn't all returns with direct debit scheduled, just some of them, I cant remember if they ever found the common denominator to fix it.

[fish]

1040 balance due. various banks and various payment dates.

[Stormy12]

The same here. Various banks (WF, Citibank, Chase, BofA) and various payment dates. I already spoke to Lacerte. They are aware of this with a case number of INV41967. 

[Stormy12]

 All of my returns e-filed on February 21 where the Electronic Payment was not approved are all being withdrawn according to the  IRS e-file Payment Services number.  I have three more returns that were e-filed on February 25.  Waiting until next week to call the IRS. I'm going to report this to Lacerte.  Let's see how long it takes for them to call me back.  Last time it took 1 1/2 hours to speak with someone.

[Stormy12]

Just got off the phone with Lacerte.  It is their problem and it has been fixed with the 2/25/20 update.  Please update your programs. 

[fish]

Great news!! Thank you for letting me know

[Ursula23]

Unfortunately it has not been fixed. We loaded the update from 2/25/20 and it was fixed for those returns filed that day and then yesterday's returns it was back as being incorrect. There was another update this morning and we called tech support again this morning and they said it is still on going.

[fish]

Well at least Lacerte admits there is a glitch.  We will just keep asking for a solution. 

[JeriR]

We contacted IRS and got confirmation that all 4 of our clients with federal reject notifications in the acknowledgement letter had payments scheduled properly.  Hopefully this will be resolved soon.  Our staff has better things to do than follow up with confirmation of the scheduled payments that we have taken for granted with the e-file process we have established in saving not only the acknowledgement letter, but the status activity reports to our individual client's data folders in DMS!  We were not ready for this nagging glitch!

[TAD]

Oddly, I had the same issue on a client on Feb 24, 2020.  In that case the letter said the IRS rejected the payment.  Made no sense.  I just now reprinted the acceptance letter, out of curiousity, and it does not say the payment was rejected, but it also does not say the payment will be withdrawn from the account.  The State information does make that statement.

On a second client the same today - no confirmation that direct withdrawal will occur, just that there is an $xxx balance due.  How do we rely on this, to know the direct withdrawal/debit will occur?!?!?!

[Just-Lisa-Now-]

You can call the EFW inquiry line and find out if its actually scheduled, but they really need to get this worked out.

Call IRS e-file Payment Services 24/7 at 1-888-353-4537 to inquire about or cancel your payment, but please wait 7 to 10 days after your return was accepted before calling.

[Stormy12]

Why can't Lacerte get the EF Acceptance Letter correct. It's not rocket science. I thought with this week's update they would fix it but now it just states there is a balance due on the letter.

[fish]

thanks for the update, I hope we have the opportunity to review this software at year end. The main problem I have with Lacerte is there is no communication about this from them. At least put an alert out that we are aware of the problem and trying to fix, rather than letting us just hold returns or not send confirmations that the returns were received to our clients or last and my least favorite--mail a check for payment!  At least this format allows us to vent but does nothing for fixing the problem.

[Stormy12]

I just received this from Lacerte.

Below is the latest update:

This is a status update for an issue with the US Acceptance letter not displaying accurate information for some Direct Debit returns.

Initially it presented as \"The IRS did not approve your payment\". This was corrected with an update removing that unexpected text on the week of February 23rd.

After that, we received reports and found that while the \"IRS did not approve..\" text was removed, the letter was still indicating to mail the 1040-V and a check. That issue was fixed on our March 3rd update.

The last remaining issue for this item is the letter now simply states \"There is a balance due of $xxxx.\" It does not indicate the payment is set for Direct Debit. This can lead to confusion as to how the payment is being made.

This last item is expected to be resolved on an update the week of March 8th. We will send another email once that issue has been resolved.

Our next update is scheduled to occur within 1 week

We thank you for your patience.
Intuit Customer Success

[fish]

thank you for the update. I received an email from Lacerte as well. My hands off to Lacerte for letting us know the status and progress. At last communication. Thanks to the community for keeping this issue alive. 

[danpwm]

March 10:  the update has fixed part of the acceptance letter but not all. The letter no longer states  "IRS did not approve payment" , but the letter does NOT indicate the payment will be auto-withdrawn. 

In the State paragraph, the letter indicates the payment will be withdrawn but not in the FED payment paragraph. So clients either have to assume payments will be withdrawn or wait to see if payment clears their bank account. 

[fish]

I just sent several out this morning.  I am not a programmer, so I have limited understanding of how or why this cannot be fixed.  Let's keep those phone calls and notices to Lacerte going, maybe the sheer number of users complaining will get a better fix. Thank you for sharing. 

[JeriR]

Our acknowledgement letters for individual tax returns with a balance due correctly indicate that the amount will be withdrawn from the bank.  I have updated our software quite often (daily at times) and use the default client letters within the software.  So, for our office at least, we are satisfied the problem is resolved at this point.

[TAD]

I, too, thought the most recent update would correct the problem.  It seems to have done so, but not without a status update being run on each return affected.  After that, the correct information (the IRS will debit the account) is included in the letter.

[fish]

Just got back a couple this morning. So far so good. The letter is correct for those returns I filed after the last update on Monday 3.9.20. Hopefully this has been resolved. Thanks to all who shared and helped resolve this issue.