When returns are filed electronically with a tax agency, the practitioner typically receives a short electronic message that serves as a confirmation that the return has been received. The confirmation is sometimes referred to as an acknowledgement, or "ack."
A number of tax practitioners have contacted the Division of Taxation to say that they received acknowledgements from the Internal Revenue Service for the recent e-filing of federal returns, but have not yet received acknowledgements from the Division of Taxation for the recent e-filing of their Rhode Island returns.
Rhode Island Tax Administrator David M. Sullivan today explained that, due to server updates, a backlog resulted within the Division of Taxation, temporarily delaying the issuing of acknowledgements. The delay involved several thousand returns -- mainly business returns on Form RI-1120C, Form RI-1120S, and Form RI-1065 -- that were e-filed between early September 2015 and mid-September 2015. (A small number of returns on Form RI-1040 were also affected.) “But the server-update issue has now been resolved, the backlog is being reduced, and the first batch of acknowledgements has been issued,” Sullivan said.
"We are pleased to report that the problem has been resolved and that the backlog is dwindling. We also want practitioners and taxpayers to know that if their return was due by September 15 and was e-filed by September 15, but was caught up in this server-update issue, the return will still be considered as timely filed," Sullivan said.
