New Acknowledgement Record Lengths

(Last review or update:  October 28, 2005)


The length of acknowledgements processed by AKSYS for state Personal Income Tax returns will change to 120 bytes effective November 1, 2005, and the acknowledgements will be structured as in Section 12.14, IRS Publication 1346. Although AKSYS, itself, does not require it for processing, for consistency the Start of Record Sentinel, ****, will be added as the fifth through eighth bytes of each record including the Header Record (0120****THIS IS AKSYS.) and the Accounting Record that ends each file.

Whether or not individual fields in the new acknowledgement records contain significant data, or are zero- or space-filled, will be decided by each state. As in the past, AKSYS will pass on to transmitters the acknowledgements it receives without changing the structure unless a revenue department has made different arrangements with AKSYS.

Transmitters will continue to receive all of their acknowledgements for state personal income tax returns in a single file.   However, the file name extension will change from .00 to .01 to reflect the new length. The filename extensions for 120-byte acknowledgements for state Forms 1065 will continue to be .11. If a transmitter does not want files of differing record lengths, or acknowledgements for different types of returns (personal income tax, 1065, 1120, etc), in the same download, AKSYS can establish additional cells (mailboxes) for the transmitter at no extra charge.

AKSYS can process acknowledgements of any length and structure, and for any state form. Shown below are filenames and extensions for some different categories of acknowledgements.  

In the following examples, ABCDEF is the sample access code of a transmitter and also the filename of his file on the dial-up system.

ABCDEF.00    (58-byte acknowledgements for state personal income tax returns) DISCONTINUED
ABCDEF.01  (120-byte acknowledgements for state personal income tax returns) 

ABCDEF.10   (xx-byte acknowledgements for state partnership [1065] returns)
ABCDEF.11    (120-byte acknowledgements for state partnership [1065] returns)
 

ABCDEF.20   (xx-byte acknowledgements for state corporation returns)
ABCDEF.21   (120-byte acknowledgements for state corporation returns) 

31 through 49 are reserved for other state forms for which there are commonly-used equivalent federal forms. 

ABCDEF.50   (xx-byte acknowledgements for state form ----)
ABCDEF.51   (120-byte acknowledgements for state form ****) 

Etc. 

The selections in purple are those that revenue departments have requested so far for the coming filing season, and they are the files that transmitters will download from AKSYS each time they call the dial-up system. 

At the gacaksys.com web site, AKSYS will include a link to each transmitter's file of acknowledgements for personal income tax returns and another link to the transmitter's file of acknowledgements for state Form 1065 returns. At a transmitter's Internet page, clicking the "Reset to Dummy File" button for either link will cause AKSYS to reset both files to dummy files at the Internet site and on the dial-up system. Calling the dial-up system and entering an access code will have the same effect.


The structure of the 120-byte acknowledgement record.