When I opened 2024 Turbo Tax to send my return to the IRS, it went through the updating process.
Before sending the return though, I double-checked everything and near the end, just before TT got ready to send it, it went through the IRS review and no errors were found. When I reached the stage to transmit it, it was sent. Turbo Tax came back with a message that said "Your Returns have been sent." It gave a date of transmission (January 29, 2025 10:06 PM EST) , an estimated acceptance date of January 31, and my email address for tracking.
At the same time, I received an email dated 10:06 PM that said “You’re almost there. Be sure to keep an eye on your inbox to see if your return is accepted or rejected.” Then about an hour later at 11:12 PM, I received an email that said “Your federal return has been accepted by the IRS.” And about 3 hours after that at 2:22 AM, I clicked on the tab for “Check E-file Status”. It said “The IRS has accepted this return and you’re finished with your taxes.” Inside the email is an orange button that says “Track my refund”. That took me to https://www.irs.gov/refunds. There it says that the return has been received and is being processed.
So, it looks like the transmission went through OK and that the IRS has received it. It looks like processing it and finding everything OK is another matter and that I have to trust that Turbo Tax prepared the Form 1040 correctly and did the calculations correctly, if the return is going to pass through the “processing” stage successfully.
But, I am beginning to have my doubts. I say this because I saved a pdf file of 1040 as it was when it was sent and I found 4 “2025 Form 1040-ES Payment Voucher”s at the end of the file. The vouchers have the words "DO NOT FILE FORM NOT FINAL" on them. If TT did everything correctly, why is this printed on the vouchers??
As I understand it, these vouchers were not a part of the file that was sent to the IRS. So, the IRS does not see them or have a record of them. OK, but what about the vouchers themselves?
Does this “watermark” on the vouchers mean that I can not use them to send my 2025 estimated tax payments by U.S. Mail to the IRS Revenue Service address printed on the voucher?
Why did 2024 Turbo Tax produce them this way? Isn't everything in TT in its final form so that the return can be sent to the IRS on the day the IRS portal opens (Jan 27 this year 2024) and isn’t everything the program produces “up-to-snuff” then??
