To give myself more breathing room, I filed an extension. However since I didn't see any progress on the software fix, I searched the similar topics here and found some workaround suggestion by Deborahwrites1 on this site. After doing the same workaround by deleting the blank FORM 7206 and ensuring there's only one FORM 7296 which really applies to me, I resubmitted my federal tax return. Sure enough, it got accepted by IRS. Apparently the issue has something to do with the blank FORM 7206.
