Form 1310 with no court appointment

[DENNYCARR]

Decedent left a will appointing son executor (there's no surviving spouse).  Will is basically useless because all property gifted away prior to death or has death beneficiaries appointed.  The instructions on Form 1310 are sparse. 

Part I: person other than surviving spouse or court appointed claiming refund. 

Part II:

1. will; yes

2.a. appointment already; no

2b. future appointment; no

3. pay out refund accordance with state laws; yes.

IRS rejected paper filing and provided a Form 3531 "Request for Signature to Complete Return"

Form 3531 suggests refiling Form 1310.

What am I missing? It seems like reporting the existence of a will without a court appointment is confusing the IRS.

[Greta · Accepted solution]

I agree!

In such cases I have been responding with whatever checked box will make the pink error go away. May not be accurate but with a lot more hassle the end result would be the same.

[sjrcpa]

I don't think you're missing anything. IRS seems to have trouble processing these. I seem to always get letters. Frequently they ask for the 1310, which was in fact part of the original return.

[BobKamman]

Apparently the problem is solved, but what happened?  Was the Form 1310 submitted with the paper return also signed?  How do you know?

[Greta]

During Covid I really tried to avoid paper returns if I could. Mailing would delay processing by months and months. If I could efile Form 1310 with no financial consequence, I took the easy route.