LLC Tax ReturnA second signature

What the authorization is actually saying

On paper, a signature sits under a declaration that the return is true, correct, and complete. When the return is sent electronically, a separate authorization carries that declaration and also permits the transmitter to send the file. People treat the authorization as a cover sheet. It is the promise.

The form number of that authorization changes with the return it belongs to. A partnership, an S company, a C company, and an individual each have their own. Signing the individual version does not authorize the company file, and signing last year's version does not authorize this year. Match the authorization to the return the way you match a key to a lock.

There is often a place for a personal identification number you chose. That number is part of the signature. If you do not remember choosing it, ask who did. A PIN you did not choose is a promise in your name that you did not make.

What it does not do

The authorization does not close a month, and it does not create wages that were never paid. It does not file a state report by itself. Where a state wants its own return or its own report, that is another signature on another day. Owners discover this when a state notice arrives about a year they thought was finished because the federal file went through.

It also does not review the return. The pages before it can still be wrong. Signing the authorization because the preparer's software produced a green check is how a bad sales line gets transmitted with a calm conscience. The green check means the file met a format. It does not mean the shop you ran is the shop on the form.

If you are being asked to sign before you have seen the PDF, refuse that order. The authorization is the last page, not the first. We will not ask you to authorize a file we have not walked. If someone else prepared it, we can still read the promise with you before you sign.

How we handle the page

On a call we open the authorization and read the declaration in ordinary words. Then we look back at the form number of the return it points at. If those two do not belong together, we stop. A mismatched pair is a common product of a copied file from the prior year.

We also look at the date. An authorization signed in a rush on the due date, for a return nobody opened, is the scene this site is built to interrupt. Twenty minutes with the form number and the three lines is a smaller cost than an amendment.

If the return is already transmitted, the authorization has done its work and the conversation changes. We can still read what was sent. We cannot unsend it by wishing. Say whether the file has gone, in the box below, so we do not talk as if the pen is still in the air.

Which authorization is attached