1040 E-file: Elections - General Guidelines

The IRS reviewed all forms and form instructions to identify where taxpayers are required to attach supporting data. Wherever the supporting data is located in an election, the IRS has provided specific XML formats that must be used.

The examples below are samples of elections required by form instructions:

Instructions	Election Required
Form 8697	De Minimis Exception Election
Form 4562	Election Not to Claim Special Depreciation Allowance

The IRS has not reviewed all regulations and publications to identify every possible election. Rather than performing this analysis and then defining specific schemas to match each of these elections, the IRS created a General Dependency schema.

The General Dependency schema is used for most disclosure statements and elections required by regulations or IRS publications. The General Dependency schema includes the following elements:

Form Line or Instructions Reference (Optional) Complete this field when the election is made based on information on IRS forms or form instructions, and the IRS has not defined a specific format.

Regulation Reference (Optional) Use this field to identify information for elections made based on information contained in regulations or publications.

Description (Optional) Use this field to enter a brief explanation of the election.

Attachment Information (Optional) Use this field to include additional information or to reference PDF attachments.

The current IRS schema definitions do not support information entered in a columnar format. For elections requiring columnar format, the IRS allows these to be included in the return as PDF attachments. Separate PDF files must be created for each election, and the regulation reference should be used in the name of the PDF file.

E-file/1040_ef_elections_1.htm/TY2020

Last Modified: 03/20/2020

Last System Build: 09/13/2021