ralper

This has been the biggest problem I've had in e-filing client's tax returns. In many cases the spouse assumes her husbands family name but never records the change with social security. When I e-file the return using the husbands name for the wife, as they told me, the return gets rejected because the spouse's last name doesn't match the last name associated with her social security number.

In some cases the wife has changed her last name and registered the change with social security but then begins to use her maiden name hyphenated with her husbands name and the return gets rejected because the hyphenated name doesn't match the name corresponding to the social security number in the government's computers.

Now, when I get a new client I always ask to see the social security card just to be sure I'm using the name that is associated with the social security number in the government's computers.

For those of us who e-file our client's tax returns, this has been a nightmare.

In almost every possible case e-filing is a much better choice than paper filing, except for this.

Morris

Rob, that's funny because that has never happened to me (my clients) once.
I didn't realize they even looked at the second name on a joint return.
Question for you: Do you have any clients where the wife wants her name first on the return? I have two. They both wear the pants in the family as well.
This year I had several e-files bounce because the client told me they did NOT get the $250 "Obama check" and they really did. All but one said "oh yeah", when I told them the IRS said they got it. The last one still insists he didn't, and I am letting him argue with the government, cause I know he did.

ralper

I have a few where the wife's name is first but not because she wears the pants. Typically, I started with a client's daughter and when she got married I added her husband to the return as spouse. I was too lazy to make the change. For the most part my clients don't care who is taxpayer and who is spouse. All they care about is whether or not they have to pay.

I had a couple of returns bounce back because of the $250 stim check too. You can now check to see if the taxpayer and/or spouse received it. Go to the IRS website at www.irs.ustreas.gov and you'll find a link to click on that (once you enter certain info) will tell you if the client received the check or not. I think the check was also sent to wounded veterans. A few of my clients insisted that they didn't receive the check so I printed out the info from the IRS website. That usually solved the problem.

The IRS doesn't look at the second of hyphenated names. All they look at is the first 4 letters of the last name, but many of my clients registered their husbands names with Social Security when they married and later on started hyphenating their maiden names with the husbands name. The first four letters of the maiden name isn't what the IRS computers expect to find.

As a matter of fact, they look at every name on the return. I've had some bounce back because of mismatch dependent's names and social security numbers.