When is a line by line review out of scope?

[scrowley]

I am working with the TurboTax Deluxe Live version. It was great at asking if I received a form 1099 when I should have received form W2 and prepared form 8919 under the basis of awaiting a response to the SS-8 I've filed with the IRS. 

That said, when I went for my line by line review the Enrolled Agent said he wasn't allowed to proceed as my case is out of scope. When does a line by line review become out of scope? It seems odd that the Enrolled Agents aren't able to stand-behind my return in this instance. 

[Opus 17]

I don’t think I can answer that policy question directly.  However, I have some information that will probably help to explain the situation.

TurboTax is software to assist the user in preparing their own tax return. TurboTax is not a software preparer and the program lacks the ability to include a paid preparer identification number.  The live expert upgrade does not change this basic relationship. You are still preparing your own tax return, and the live agent is not your paid preparer.  We were told last season, that in certain unusual cases, where the live expert had to provide significant additional help, the live expert would have to transfer the program to one of TurboTax’s pro series programs, and act as a paid preparer, taking responsibility for the return, signing their name to it, and adding a paid preparer ID number.

This is clearly out of scope of the ordinary live service which charges a fraction of what a paid professional tax preparer would cost you.  However, I don’t know what kinds of situations would trigger a requirement for the live expert to take over and what doesn’t.  But the basic concept is that TurboTax remains a self-prepared tax return, and you really aren’t paying enough to have the expert take full responsibility.

[scrowley]

Thanks for the response. 

Do you know how I could discuss this situation with Intuit management? It seemed to be a misrepresentation of the product feature to not openly disclose which cases would be considered out of scope for line by line review. Not sharing this information before I input all the data and gathering all my documents amounted to malpractice in my eyes. 

I've used TurboTax since 2012 and they've historically created a product and provided service that delights. This year I can't say that's been my experience. 

[BillM223]

I would imagine that "out-of-scope" could better have been communicated as "TurboTax does not support the feature you want to use."

As you can imagine, no tax software company supports every possible permutation of tax law - there are just too many.

In your case, it's likely that this is the problem:

"Uncollected Social Security and Medicare Tax on Wages (Form 8919): When filing Form 8919, the program does not support reason code combinations other than A, B, C, DG, EG, FG, G, or H. This is because you must file Form SS-8 if you select reason code D, E or F. Other reason codes combinations are not applicable." See the FAQ "Are there any personal (individual) tax situations or calculations that TurboTax doesn't handle?"

Form SS-8 is the "Determination of Worker Status for Purposes of Federal Employment Taxes and Income Tax Withholding". TurboTax does not support the codes that required this form.

In this case, your agent doing the line-by-line review was indeed going to be your tax preparer of record (i.e. sign your return), as opposed to the "normal" TurboTax Live assistance which is pretty much as Opus 17 describes it. It's just that the situation that the agent believed that he/she saw was one that TurboTax did not support.

Please review the link and see if this matches your situation.

[Edited 3/12/2020 12:24pm CDT]

[scrowley]

Thanks for the additional information! I appreciate you picking up on the fact that, indeed, this product is marketing itself as an option for those of us looking for a "tax preparer of record." I recognize it's a darn good deal at a little over a hundred bucks to have an actual CPA or EA sign off on the form and am looking forward to the additional peace of mind that provides. Indeed, all tax software is definitely trying to hit a moving target and I appreciate the business choses to operate in what must be a difficult space. 

Fortunately, the reason code used was supported -- my situation is choice G as I've filed an SS-8 and am awaiting the reply. The crux of the concern (from how it was communicated to me) was that the "standards team" was unwilling to allow the Enrolled Agent to sign off on the form due to this somehow meeting their threshold of an "appeal" to the IRS. Which surely is an interesting interpretation as the process is described on their website as a "binding determination" that in no way is an "appeal or direct referral for audit." I did fairly well in accounting and one of my favorite professors said "if it ain't spelled the same it ain't the same thing." 

I've got another set of eyes coming in on this as I found contact information for the Voice of the Customer team. They just got off a brief call with me and are referring it over to a manager on their tax team. Hopefully I can at least get more concrete answers behind the WHY. There are many types of customers, and I'm very much the thinker that needs to know the underlying reason behind a decision to be satisfied. 

I'll keep everyone informed on what happens here. While it's a special situation there seems to be more and more misclassified workers each year (especially with the gig economy). Here's hoping I can help make someone else's time easier. 

Best, 

Shawn