Stop Rejections Before the Math

A return starts with an intake file: the folder holding identity documents seen, information statements gathered, the prior-year return, and IRS notices, each marked verified or still open. The preparer works from the checklist, so a file with two unchecked boxes stays unprepared while those boxes are chased. A signed checklist might show photo ID seen, prior return requested, and one notice still to collect. Preparation begins when every box is marked.

This checklist is good office practice rather than an IRS rule. The rule underneath it is in Circular 230: a preparer may generally rely in good faith on what the client provides, without checking every figure, but may not ignore what that information implies and must ask reasonable questions when it looks incorrect, inconsistent or incomplete. An open line on the checklist is where those questions get asked.

Last year's return does three jobs at intake. It supplies identity history for e-file checks: a Self-Select PIN return uses AGI from the originally filed prior-year return, not a later amended return or IRS math-error correction. It carries carryover amounts that survive year to year, such as a capital loss carryover that enters this year's limit computation. It gives a comparison baseline, so a wage total that drops without explanation prompts a missing-statement search. Where last year was wrong, Form 1040-X is the correction path, and the intake note records that a prior amount may move.

An IRS notice is correspondence about the account: an adjustment to a prior amount, a request for information, or a confirmation that changes what the current return must show. The intake action has three parts: log which notice arrived, name what it adjusts or requests, and carry that result forward. A notice adjusting prior-year AGI is logged in the carryover and comparison file; use the original-return AGI for the e-file identity check, as the previous step explains. A notice requesting documents stays open until the documents go in.