Adding New York Form IT-204-LL to a Partnership/LLC return has been a long, difficult and frustrating experience. The NY instructions say that this for must be filed separately with the fee payment, by 3/15, and if the return is filed electronically, this form must also be e-filed. On the page entitled "Form IT-204-LL Fee Payment", the 2nd sentence: "File your fee payment for the state of New York." , the underline is actually a link to turbotax online. But you have to figure this out for yourself, as is no explanation nor any instructions. The 1st time I tried the link, the somewhat cryptic message: "This service is currently unavailable" appeared with no further explanation. After spending close to 1/2 hour on the phone with an agent researching the topic, He/she finally discovered that it meant that the form was not yet available, and emailed me a Forms Availability Schedule. After the date on the schedule passed I tried again with the same result. This time the 2nd agent, after taking just as long, gave me a new date. After that date passed without being able to file the form, I figured out how to download the Forms Availability Schedule myself, and found a 3rd date - February 23rd, which was confirmed by the above message. I waited until several days later (as one of the agents advised) but still no luck. I called again and the agent said that her schedule said while the form was available, e-filing it would not be available until 3/5. On the morning of 3/5 e-filing was still not functional, but this morning 3/6, it finally was - only 10 days before the due date! However, the link now brought me to a form questionnaire where none of the information from the return was filled in except for the signers name and email. I had to fill in all of the fields manually - company name, address, tax ID , etc etc etc. And after all that, I still can't get a copy of the form for my records. Only the Gross Income Allocation worksheet, needed for just one entry on form IT-204-LL, is available on Forms/Open a form, etc. In previous years, I could at least download the form and mail it.
Lastly, this form has been required, with separate filing and payment , for many years. The only thing new is the mandatory e-filing.
