Form Status

The Status column on the e-Form RS My Forms list displays information about all current year forms in the product.

A date in the Available column is the date the form was released in e-Form RS. At times a form will have been released and be updated later, so it will have an entry in Status also.

Possible entries in the Status column are:

• Available Soon - The form is almost ready to be released. RS builds are done 3-4 times per week, and available in production the next day
• Awaiting Approval - The form has been submitted for approval, and cannot be released until we hear from the state. We have no way of estimating how long it can take.
• Being Revised - A previously released form has been updated and is in process. Availability depends on approval requirements.
• Final NOT Available - The form has not been finalized by the taxing authority. Please note that many forms are posted by the states on their public web sites, but we are not allowed to reproduce those versions, and must wait for the vendor/substitute version of the form to be made available to us.
• In Process - The form is currently being worked on by our group. These forms usually change to "Available soon" or "Awaiting Approval" depending on approval requirements.
• Unknown - This usually means that the form has been received as a draft version, which cannot be released. It can also show when a new form is added without a form image actually being available from the state.

Why is a form showing "Unavailable" when the state has it posted on their website?

All forms included in e-Form RS are approved for filing by the issuing authority - either the IRS, or the state or local taxing jurisdiction. Most of the time, the forms posted for public use are not the ones that we are required to reproduce to gain approval. Sometimes the state releases both the public version and the substitute version at the same time, but often the substitute version is released days or weeks later, especially when the requirements or design of the form changes.

Once a form is sent for approval, we have no way of estimating how long the state will take to respond. Some states require paper copies of forms, others allow electronic submission. State staffing limitations and increases in the numbers of forms that are scanned by machine or include barcodes have tended to increase approval times.

At times we release forms that are unapproved but are due soon. When we do this, the form will display with a large "Unapproved Form" banner, but it can be filled out and saved. When the form is approved, the banner will be removed, and the form may be printed and filed.