If you produce any tax forms using IRS guidelines on permitted changes, you can generate your own substitutes without further approval. If your changes are more extensive, you must get IRS approval before using substitute forms. More extensive changes can include the use of typefaces and sizes other than those found on the official form and the condensing of line item descriptions to save space.

The Substitute Forms Program now accepts substitute forms submissions via email. The email address is *taxforms@irs.gov. Please include “PDF Submissions” on the subject line.

Follow these guidelines.

If the guidelines are not followed, you may need to resubmit.

In addition to submitting forms via email, you may continue to send your submissions to:

Follow these basic guidelines for expediting the process.

Schedules are considered to be an integral part of a complete tax return. A schedule may be included as part of a form or printed separately.

Form 706, United States Estate (and Generation-Skipping Transfer) Tax Return, is an example of this situation. Its Schedules A through U have pages numbered as part of the basic return. For Form 706 to be approved, the entire form including Schedules A through U must be submitted.

However, Schedules 1, 2, and 3 of Form 1040A are examples of schedules that can be submitted separately. Although printed by the IRS as a supplement to Form 1040A, none of these schedules are required to be filed with Form 1040A. These schedules may be separated from Form 1040A and submitted as substitute forms.

The IRS is continuing a program to identify and contact tax return preparers, forms developers, and software publishers who use or distribute unapproved forms that do not conform to this revenue procedure. The use of unapproved forms hinders the processing of the returns.

Official IRS tax forms are supplied by the IRS. These forms may be provided in the taxpayer’s tax package or over-the-counter. Forms can also be picked up at many IRS offices, post offices, or libraries, and are available on CD-ROM and online at www.irs.gov.

There are methods of reproducing IRS printed tax forms suitable for use as substitutes without prior approval.

All payment vouchers (Forms 940-V, 940-EZ(V), 941-V, 943-V, 945-V, 1040-V, and 2290-V) must be reproduced in conjunction with their forms. Substitute vouchers must be the same size as the officially printed vouchers. Vouchers that are prepared for printing on a laser printer may include a scan line.

Code Number for Forms:

Type Number for:

The voucher size must be exactly 8.0?? x 3.25?? (Forms 1040-ES and 1041-ES must be 7.625?? x 3.0??). The document scan line must be vertically positioned 0.25 inches from the bottom of the scan line to the bottom of the voucher. The last character on the right of the scan line must be placed 3.5 inches from the right leading edge of the document. The minimum required horizontal clear space between characters is .014 inches. The line to be scanned must have a clear band 0.25 inches in height from top to bottom of the scan line, and from border to border of the document. “Clear band” means no printing except for dropout ink.

Vouchers must be imaged in black ink using OCR A, OCR B, or Courier 10. These fonts may not be mixed in the scan line. The horizontal character pitch is 10 CPI. The preferred paper weight is 20 to 24 pound OCR bond.

Certain vouchers may be reproduced for use in the IRS lockbox system. These include the 1040 family, the 940 family, and 2290 vouchers. Software developers must follow these specific guidelines to produce scannable vouchers strictly for lockbox purposes. Also see Exhibit C.

Note. All software developers must ensure that their software uses OCR A font so taxpayers will be able to print the vouchers in the correct font.

Follow these line specifications for entering taxpayer data in the lockbox vouchers.

To receive approval, please send 50 samples of your vouchers for testing to the following address.

For further information, contact either Doris Bethea, Doris.E.Bethea@irs.gov, at 202-283-0218 or Leticia Guzman, Leticia.R.Guzman@irs.gov, at 202-283-0365.

You cannot, without prior IRS approval, change any IRS tax form or use your own (non-approved) versions including graphics, unless specifically permitted by this revenue procedure.

You cannot adjust any of the graphics on Forms 1040, 1040A, and 1040EZ (except in those areas specified in Part 5 of this revenue procedure) without prior approval from the IRS Substitute Forms Unit.

You cannot use your own preprinted label on tax returns filed with the IRS unless you fully comply with the criteria specified in Section 3.6.3 on the use of pre-addressed IRS labels.

Preparers who submit substitute privately designed, privately printed, computer generated, or computer prepared tax forms must develop these substitutes using the guidelines established in this part. These forms, unless excepted by the revenue procedure, must be approved by the IRS before being filed.

The IRS cannot grant final approval of your substitute form until the official form has been published. However, the IRS posts advance draft forms in the “Tax Professionals” area of its website at:

www.irs.gov/taxpros/lists/0,,id=97782,00.html

We encourage submission of proposed substitutes of these advance draft forms and will grant conditional approval based solely on these early drafts. These advance drafts are subject to significant change before forms are finalized. If these advance drafts are used as the basis for your substitute forms, you will be responsible for subsequently updating your final forms to agree with the final official version. These revisions need not be submitted for further approval.

Note. Approval of forms based on advance drafts will not be granted after the final version of an official form is published.

Follow these general guidelines when submitting substitute forms for approval.

Because only the Substitute Forms Unit is authorized to approve substitute forms, unnecessary delays may occur if forms are sent to the wrong office. The Substitute Forms Unit may then coordinate the response with the initiator responsible for revising that particular form. Such coordination may include allowing the initiator to officially approve the form. No IRS office is authorized to allow deviations from this revenue procedure.

The IRS does not review or approve the logic of specific software programs, nor does the IRS confirm the calculations on the forms produced by these programs. The accuracy of the program remains the responsibility of the software package developer, distributor, or user.

The Substitute Forms Unit is primarily concerned with the pre-filing quality review of the final forms that are expected to be processed by IRS field offices. For this purpose, you should submit forms without including any taxpayer information such as names, addresses, monetary amounts, etc.

Proposed substitutes, which are required to be submitted per this revenue procedure, should be sent as much in advance of the filing period as possible. This is to allow adequate time for analysis and response.

When submitting sample substitutes, you should include an accompanying statement that lists each form number and its changes from the official form (position, arrangement, appearance, line numbers, additions, deletions, etc.). With each of the items you should include a detailed reason for the change.

When requesting approval, please include a check sheet. Check sheets expedite the approval process. The check sheet may look like the example in Exhibit D displayed in the back of this procedure or may be one of your own design. Please include your fax number on the check sheet.

The Substitute Forms Unit will fax the check sheet or an approval letter to the originator if a fax number has been provided, unless:

Notice of approval may impose qualifications before using the substitutes. Notices of unapproved forms may specify the changes required for approval and require re-submission of the form(s) in question. Telephone contact is used when appropriate.

Most signature tax returns and many of their schedules and related forms have the tax (liability) year printed in the upper right corner. Approvals for these forms are usually good for one calendar year (January through December of the year of filing). Quarterly tax forms in the 940 series and Form 720 require approval for any quarter in which the form has been revised.

Because changes are made to a form every year, each new filing season generally requires a new submission of a substitute form. Very rarely is updating the preprinted year the only change made to a form.

Limited changes approved for one tax year may be allowed for the same form in the following tax year. Examples are the use of abbreviated words, revised form spacing, compressed text lines, and shortened captions, etc., which do not change the integrity of lines or text on the official forms.

If substantial changes are made to the form, new substitutes must be submitted for approval. If only minor editorial changes are made to the form, it is not subject to review. It is the responsibility of each vendor who has been granted permission to use substitute forms to monitor and revise forms to mirror any revisions to official forms made by the Service. If there are any questions, please contact the Substitute Forms Unit.

If you received written approval for a specific change on a form last year, you may make the same change this year if the item is still present on the official form.

Exception. Forms with temporary, limited, or interim approvals (or with approvals that state a change is not allowed in any other tax year) are subject to review in subsequent years.

Forms without preprinted tax years are called “continuous-use” forms. Continuous-use forms are revised when a legislative change affects the form or a change will facilitate processing. These forms may have revision dates that are valid for longer than one year.

A schedule of print dates (for annual and quarterly forms) and most current revision dates (for continuous-use forms) are maintained on the IRS website. The Tax Products Posting Schedule can be found at www.irs.gov/formspubs/article/0,,id=103641,00.html. See Section 4.3.2.

Generally, you must send us one copy of each form being submitted for approval. However, if you are producing forms for different computer systems (for example, IBM compatible vs. Macintosh) or different types of printers (for example, laser vs. inkjet), and these forms differ significantly in appearance, submit one copy for each type of system or printer.

Following receipt of an initial approval for a substitute forms package or a software output program to print substitute forms, it is the responsibility of the originator (designer or distributor) to provide client firms or individuals with forms that meet the IRS’s requirements for continuing acceptability. Examples of this responsibility include:

The Substitute Forms Unit will assign a unique source code to each firm that submits substitute paper forms for approval. This source code will be a permanent identifier that should be used on every submission by a particular firm.

The source code consists of three alpha characters and should generally be printed at the bottom left margin area on the first page of every approved substitute form.

There are legal requirements of the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (The Act). Public Law 104-13 requires the following.

This information must be provided to every user of official or substitute tax forms.

On forms that have been assigned OMB numbers:

You must inform the users of your substitute forms of the IRS use and collection requirements stated in the instructions for official IRS forms.

Note. If the IRS instructions are not provided to users of your forms, the exact text of the Paperwork Reduction Act Notice (or Disclosure, Privacy Act, and Paperwork Reduction Act Notice) must be furnished separately or on the form.

The OMB number and the Paperwork Reduction Act Notice, or references to it, may be found printed on an official form (or its instructions). The number and the notice are included on the official paper format and in other formats produced by the IRS (for example, compact disc (CD) or Internet download).

The official form is the standard. Because a substitute form is a variation from the official form, you should know the requirements of the official form for the year of use before you modify it to meet your needs. The IRS provides several means of obtaining the most frequently used tax forms. These include the Internet and CD-ROM (see Part 4).

Each form must follow the design of the official form as to format arrangement, item caption, line numbers, line references, and sequence.

Generally, state tax information must not appear on the federal tax return, associated form, or schedule that is filed with the IRS. Exceptions occur when amounts are claimed on, or required by, the federal return (for example, state and local income taxes, on Schedule A of Form 1040).

Many individual income tax forms have a required “attachment sequence number” located just below the year designation in the upper right corner of the form. The IRS uses this number to indicate the order in which forms are to be attached to the tax return for processing. Some of the attachment sequence numbers may change from year to year.

The following applies to computer prepared forms.

If developing software or forms for use by others, please inform your customers/clients that the order in which the forms are arranged may affect the processing of the package. A return must be arranged in the order indicated below.