I am filing personal taxes and received a Schedule K-1 this year. In Part I, box A, "Partnership’s employer identification number," the entry should be the identification number, but the field says "applied for." The partnership is new and had applied for an EIN, but does not have one yet due to the IRS processing backlog. After inquiring with the IRS, the IRS said they are unable to give a timeline for when the EIN might be issued.
TurboTax lets me proceed without entering any information under "Partnership’s employer identification number" (it won't accept text, so I can't enter "Applied for"), but I cannot e-file with this field blank.
Given that I have no estimate for when I'll receive an EIN, what is the best course of action for filing my personal taxes?
- Is there a way to "bypass" the field verification check in TurboTax so I could file my taxes electronically?
- Should I file by mail without the partnership EIN (this means I need to file federal and state returns by mail), putting myself in a waiting line after the current backlog of tax returns? Will my mailed return even be accepted with this piece of information missing? (For what it's worth, the partnership made no income.)
- Alternatively, should I wait as long as possible to see if I receive the EIN before filing, and hope that I'd be able to file electronically by April? The risk here is that I still have to mail an even more backlogged paper return in April.
Thank you for your input.
