Efile and the 5 day window

[Marie]

Maybe discussed before, but what was the reasoning on rejects after 5 days? 

[Abby Normal]

In my experience it seems to be 6 days. As for reasoning, the only thing I can think of is that is cuts down on the EFC having to do a reject on a return that has an outdated form in it. In practice, for the way we do things, almost every single efile will need to be recreated, and that will add up to a lot of hours over the year.

And I'm always worried that when I reopen the return, that the tax return will change, due to a form update. I've been opening the PDF of the return and checking to see that the refunds or balances due match what I'm seeing on the screen.

[Marie]

I have the same fears as you with numbers changing before efiling.  I don't do returns with clients sitting at my desk, they drop off and come back when I'm finished.  Sometimes, that could be several weeks if they are out of town, or just not in a hurry.  

Lots of time recreating.  Don't like this.  Is it just ATX or all software? 

[Jim Oh Bkkr]

Drake suffers from this also.

[Randall]

It's probably a good thing the software does.  If there's a time lag, it forces us to open the return and get it updated.  I do like Abby, compare to my earlier pdf return to see if there are changes.

[schirallicpa]

the 5 days is driving me nuts!  When did we start doing this?  I get if there are updates and needs to change.  But I efile a federal return on Wednesday and get around to efile the state on Monday and I have to spend how much time piddling around to create it again.  

grumble mumble.....grumble mumble....

[Pacun]

I don't create a pdf. I get the signed 8879 and I check the refund on paper vs the one on the upper right corner of my monitor.