Texas franchise e-filing for public information report requirement below revenue threshold

[Amy Garza]

This year we were not allowed to e-file the required Texas franchise report when the revenue was under $2,470,000, due to new filing changes by the state. We had to manually go online to our state accounts and file the required Public Information Reports for our clients. Please work with the state of Texas to allow tax preparers to be able to e-file this form through Lacerte.

[kenwoolley1]

Lacerte is an authorized provider with the comptrollers office.

Even though it doesn't look like it is filing the public information reports, I was able to verify Lacerte was filing them by looking deep in the e-file system. Its there, but not as you would be expecting it to be acknowledged.

[Amy Garza]

Thank you for your comment, Ken. I originally wrote this post because I got an error when e-filing the PIR through Lacerte and I called in to customer service and spoke to a customer representative to get it cleared.  The rep said that the error meant that we were not able to e-file the required form(s) (i.e. PIR).  After getting your comment today, I called Lacerte to see about this resolution.  When I tried to re-submit the TX franchise today with the rep to test the system, the validation status changed from failed at the original attempt in April to passed today.  It appears to be working now and the rep today suggested that either there has been a system update since then or I was originally misled by the Lacerte rep. In any case, this is good news and I appreciate you bringing it to light.