I've always found it confusing that the 1310 instructions say that if you are the court appointed representative you do NOT need to file Form 1310. But people who do this sort of work say that you do. I'm wondering if there is some part of the process that I'm missing.
Example. Assume Mr. Green died on January 4 before filing
his tax return. On April 3 of the same year, you were appointed
by the court as the personal representative for Mr. Green’s
estate and you file Form 1040 for Mr. Green. You do not need to
file Form 1310 to claim the refund on Mr. Green’s tax return.
However, you must attach to his return a copy of the court
certificate showing your appointment.
So the answer may depend heavily on the situation. When my mom passed away I filed Form 56 and attached the court certificate to that (in VA it's called a "Letter of Qualification"). Then I was able to efile her 1040 the following year without attaching anything and had the refund direct deposited into the estate bank account. Easy peasy. I think I was using ProSeries at the time and I had to answer some questions on the 1310 screen but there was a checkbox something like "certificate already submitted" and checking that made all of the errors go away. This year I hear that PS removed the errors forcing you to fill the form out, don't know if that's good or bad (or necessary or unnecessary).
Anyway, just my ramblings. I usually send my deceased taxpayer returns to the attorneys who set up the revocable trusts that they probably didn't need.
Be aware of mixed results with efile. I've heard that sometimes the SSA and/or IRS locks the SSN so you have to paper file. But not always. Best I can tell there isn't a rhyme or reason to it.
Rick
