Fill and Sign will not work in recent document download from IRS site

Forum|Forum|8 years ago
January 21, 2018
2 replies
1659 views

I recently downloaded the W-2 form for filling out and printing from the IRS website. I could not get the Fill and Sign toolbar to load all actions; it only allowed signing. I checked for updates; did all troubleshooting steps. I then erased the program and reloaded it; updated my computer before reloading it. I have had no problems with my Acrobat DC Pro until this form, but I could not get it to let me fill it in. I did follow the steps under a similar question posted earlier this month, and finally had to go into my account and pull it up there in order to complete what I needed. What a pain! My system is as follows:

PDF forms

This topic has been closed for replies.

G

gkaiseril

Inspiring

Please read the first page of the IRS W-2 form. It is for reference purposes only and needs to be filed along with other forms that all must agree as to the total amounts being reported. Also there is an instruction PDF for the form. It is best to see a tax professional about this form and other payroll forms as well as your business taxes. There are many software vendors that sell programs and form stock to use with their programs to complete the individual forms and summary form. There is also an IRS requirement that these forms be filed electronically after a certain number of employees.

T

tamiv66610907Author

Participant

Not correct-IRS allows the use of this form for employees copies; and they allow and state it is a form you can fill in and print copies from for employees . However! You are cautioned that it is NOT to be used to mail or submit to tge social security office as per their reporting requirements.

Tami Villa-Schwartz

307-461-0374

Thom Parker

Community Expert

You are more than welcome to try to use the form. Note that the form has security settings that prevent changing the form field properties and distribution rights have been applied that also add to complexity of trying to change the form. But you are welcome to try. From my experience in preparing tax forms, I would look at software packages to prepare these forms and have the Federal, and state and possibly county and city field completed by the software. You lessen the chance of entry errors and calculation errors. Note that the IRS and states do exchange some tax data that includes wages.

G, I'm with you on using a tax app to prepare the w2.

However, purely from a technical standpoint its an interesting nut to crack. The form is not that hard to modify. A "save as copy" might strip out the rights stuff, and if this doesn't work you can download a plug-in from my site that will strip out signatures, which is basically the rights stuff. But an easier solution is to just open it in LC Designer and write out a fresh unprotected form.

Thom Parker - Software Developer at PDFScriptingUse the Acrobat JavaScript Reference early and often

Thom Parker

Community Expert

If this is the form you downloaded?

https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/fw2.pdf

This form is a truly bizarre animal. First, it's a LiveCycle form, so the fill and sign tools aren't going to work with it, period!

But the bizarre part is that all the form fields are set to ReadOnly, and there are no scripts on the form for enabling the fields, or any scripts at all. However, this is easy enough to fix. All you need is a script to collect all the fields and reset the ReadOnly state.

Although I'm sure the IRS wants you to do something else with it. Why don't you ask them.

Thom Parker - Software Developer at PDFScriptingUse the Acrobat JavaScript Reference early and often

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