Blog for VITA Volunteers To Post Queries About Taxslayer Training Software?

[honda....@gmail.com]

Is there one?

I suspect the Taxslayer training software may not be set up to deal with the refundable (new for 2021) child and dependent care credit. I want to know if others are seeing this. Else I am missing something.

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[Bob Sandler]

>Is there one?
>
>I suspect the Taxslayer training software may not be set up
>to deal with the refundable (new for 2021) child and
>dependent care credit. I want to know if others are seeing
>this. Else I am missing something.

You are right. As of now Form 2441 in TaxSlayer is not fully
updated for 2021. There is no way to check box B to make the
Child and Dependent Care Credit refundable. The credit is
shown as nonrefundable on Schedule 3.

I don't know of any blog or online forum for volunteers.

Bob Sandler

[honda....@gmail.com]

Bob, thank you for looking into this and your quick response. I discovered this when I was doing the last question on the advanced test for VITA volunteer certification, pertaining to the hypothetical Richard Cook and his young daughter.

I am going to try to send an email to the folks at https://vitablog.taxslayerpro.com/ . The latter is not truly a forum, where some nobody like myself can post. Plus I suppose the volunteer standards of conduct might be interpreted to mean that one should not go around flaming the IRS over its training materials.

[Bob Sandler]

>Bob, thank you for looking into this and your quick response. I discovered this when I was doing the last question on the advanced test for VITA volunteer certification, pertaining to the hypothetical Richard Cook and his young daughter.

The word from our State Training Coordinator is the
following.

"Not everything is in TaxSlayer Online for TY2021 yet.
However, the only place I saw that impacts the answers to
the test questions seems to be Questions 35. You should
answer Question 35 based on your knowledge of 2021 tax law,
not based on what you see in TaxSlayer. TaxSlayer is still
waiting for final IRS approval on something before they can
implement new input screens, so it shows some strange
results for this question."

Bob Sandler

[honda....@gmail.com]

Bob, great, thanks for the further input from your state training coordinator.

I just wrote one of the instructors for my VITA site about this as well. If the instructor says anything different, I will post back.

[honda....@gmail.com]

Bob, my site's instructor agrees with you and your state coordinator.

My instructor here also got the answer for advanced test #35 wrong, even though she (and you, your folks there, and I) would have known better had we ignored what the Taxslayer software spewed out.