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California 540 Requires County

Forum|Forum|5 years ago
January 22, 2021
5 replies
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The 2020 540 for California requires the entry of a County of residence. This is new and is not included on the Organizer. Any ideas of how you are going to proceed with this one?

Dennis McFerran

RTRP

San Jose CA (Santa Clara county)

Lacerte Tax

This topic has been closed for replies.

Best answer by BobKamman

That's the government's advantage when they install e-filing: They can ask us data-entry clerks to input more and more information, and it costs them nothing. I'll have to take a look at the form. On a joint return, does it require two entries? What if someone moved from Riverside to Tulare on July 1? And of course, you can't use the current ZIP code because that may just be where they are currently quarantining.

IRonMaN

Level 15

Google has always worked for me when I have prepared other state returns that require a county to be selected on the return.

Slava Ukraini!

T

TaxGuyBill

Level 15

A couple of options that I can think of:

(1) Ask the client.

(2) Google their city or address and "county".

T

TaxGuyBill

Level 15

@IRonMaN You beat me by 9 seconds.

IRonMaN

Level 15

@TaxGuyBill - that's because I am farther north which means my answer started up higher which resulted in it gaining more speed so that it rolled faster than yours ------------------- 9 seconds faster to be exact 🤓

Slava Ukraini!

BobKammanAnswer

Level 15

That's the government's advantage when they install e-filing: They can ask us data-entry clerks to input more and more information, and it costs them nothing. I'll have to take a look at the form. On a joint return, does it require two entries? What if someone moved from Riverside to Tulare on July 1? And of course, you can't use the current ZIP code because that may just be where they are currently quarantining.

D

dlmcferranAuthor

Level 4

AND according to what I saw by googling, some ZIP Codes span more than one county.

Dennis McFerran

rbynaker

Level 13

We've had to do this in VA for a long time. Someone with a "Fairfax" address or zip code might live in either Fairfax County or the City of Fairfax (each has their own locality code). In VA we also have personal property taxes at the locality level. So if they paid their car tax to the City of Fairfax instead of the County of Fairfax that's a pretty good clue.

For new clients (or clients who move) I used to use usps.com (now I don't have to, Drake populates this automatically based on the address). It's gotten harder to find on their website but you can look up a zip code by address:

https://tools.usps.com/zip-code-lookup.htm?byaddress

On the results page there's an arrow that gives you more details including the locality.

Just-Lisa-Now-

Intuit Community Champion

Im using ProSeries, not Lacerte, but dang you'd think they could give us a drop down menu to choose from or better yet, pull it from the zip code.

Wonder what California is going to use the County information for....

♪♫•*¨*•.¸¸♥Lisa♥¸¸.•*¨*•♫♪

D

dlmcferranAuthor

Level 4

Totally agree. Since Lacerte is able to populate City and State if we enter the zipcode, you'd think it would be relatively easy to add county to that operation.

Dennis McFerran

M

Mike T

Level 2

To piggy back on this topic.

If your client is under the age of 18, ProSeries will not allow you to check the residency boxes either yes or no. Hence you are un able to e-file the return. I have been unsuccessful in try to contact support to inform them of this issue. The reason for the county residency verification is for election and voter registration. Being under the age of 18 (not able to vote) we are unable to file such a return.

BobKamman

Level 15

@Mike T

Has anyone asked FTB why they want it? My guess is that it has more to do with revenue sharing than voter registration. They still want it for adults with ITIN's, right? The problem may be that some people have a mailing address in one county (business location) but actually reside in another.

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