I am filing for my mother-in-law. Her husband died in 2015, but his pension fund continued to make payments to him (1099-R, for $905.00) for the first few months of 2016. I was advised to file my Mother-in-law as a 'Single' for 2016, and then to file for my deceased Father-in-law as a 'Single' in 2016 to account for that $905. The IRS has removed his SSN from the system however so it won't accept a 2016 return from him.
That is correct. The "locked" indicates that whoever took care of the final arraignments upon their passing, actually did their job. The SSN is locked so that it can't be used fraudulently. You have no choice but to print, sign and mail the tax return to the IRS. If a refund is due, then an IRS Form 1310 will also need to be included. You can get that form at https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f1310.pdf. When completing the form (and I can't stress the importance of this enough) *READ* *THE* *INSTRUCTIONS* included with the form, on the referenced website.