Efile with attachment. Import from a Turbotax file.

[B77]

I'm an investor who uses section 475 mark to market rules, so I'm required to attach a pdf statement to my return every year with a standard paragraph to elect or renew my professional trader status. I bought Turbotax Desktop, and finished creating my return. However, TurboTax desktop does not support any attachments for efiling. The only community advice is to "paper file all turbotax returns for section 475 investors".

However, paper filing is not desirable. Paper returns can take over half a year to process, have a higher error rate, etc etc. So I'm looking for some way to still efile, both now and in the future. I read that proseries can import turbotax files. Is there some service I can hire where I could hand a person my turbotax file, and they can import it into their pro software (like proseries), and efile it for me complete with the needed pdf attachment?

Do the people at "turbotax online - live" have this capability? Or maybe some of the people or companies on this forum are capable of this?

[Terry53029]

You should locate a professional in your location willing to do this for you by calling around. Don't think you will find anyone on this forum 

[George4Tacks · Accepted solution]

I believe the product you are looking for ProConnect Tax, which an online product that anyone can use. It will handle the attachment. You can convert from a TurboTax return. https://proconnect.intuit.com/tax-online/data-conversion/  but I believe it will only convert a prior year return, not a current year. You would need to get an EFIN to e-file from this product. Here is a recent discussion of the issue from someone that is doing more than one return, but not many. https://proconnect.intuit.com/community/proconnect-tax-discussions/discussion/obtaining-efin/00/2307...

[B77]

I found a working solution though a competing software provider. (Described below.)

Honestly I was surprised and dismayed that TurboTax Desktop currently fails to support section 475 elections in an EFiled return. Such elections are common enough among investors. (And they are explicitly required by the IRS for MTM accounting.) TurboTax seems well designed in many respects so leaving out a basic need for a subset of investors seemed uncharacteristic.

Warning, there is some technospeak in this paragraph: From a programming perspective, supporting a text based election does not specifically require the ability to attach a user-generated PDF document, and supporting the technical problems such a PDF attachment could entail. (Such as EFile attachment size limitations). Making a 475 election possible only requires the ability to accept a "taxpayer note" for addition to the return, meaning accepting a paragraph of plain text. From the text based user input, the TurboTax software could generate a PDF document page containing that text, ensuring that the final EFiled PDF complies with all the underlying technical requirements of the EFile transmission protocols.

For the benefit of other forum readers who run into this problem: I learned that a competing software called TaxAct has the capability to EFile with a section 475 election. TaxAct does have various upsides and downsides from the perspective of a full tax software comparison, but thankfully it solved this particular problem for me. It allowed me to complete and EFile my return.

Here are the TaxAct support links that document this feature. The links describe how to add a section 475 election, or other regulatory notes, or general taxpayer notes to an EFiled tax return.

"Notes and Explanations for E-Filing"
https://www.taxact.com/support/16694/2021/notes-and-explanations-for-e-filing

"Form 1099-B - Traders in Securities"
(Scroll to the bottom of page, where it talks about how to add a 475 election.)
https://www.taxact.com/support/1043/2018/form-1099-b-traders-in-securities

[B77]

PS, Needless to say, going through the process to qualify for and maintain an EFIN number from the IRS is probably not an ideal solution for the more typical taxpayer, who does not happen to also be in the business of preparing taxes. Assuming that a person has a willingness to explore competing software, using TaxAct might be a simpler option for some people in this scenario. As a side note, the TurboTax developers always have the option to add the same feature to their own software, if they would like to better compete in this area.

For clarity, I (the original poster), was not given any option to choose the "accepted solution" to this thread.  Personally, I would not have necessarily chosen to mark the ProConnect reply as an accepted solution, considering that my own issue was solved a bit more easily, in a different way. Though it's good to know that ProConnect might be a option for those who are committed to staying inside the TurboTax/Intuit ecosystem.