Individual Income Tax Electronic Filing

Electronic Filing by Tax Preparers

This page contains resources for tax preparers who seek more information about Ohio's electronic filing requirements.

Tax Preparer Electronic Filing Requirement 

Paid tax preparers are required, in most cases, to file the personal and if applicable, the school district income tax return electronically using software that has been approved by both the IRS and the Ohio Department of Taxation or through Ohio's free IFile application. To learn more about this mandate, click on one of the links below.

• Ohio Revised Code Section 5747.082 outlines the electronic filing requirement for tax preparers.
  • 129^th General Assembly House Bill 508 lowered the number of income tax returns that a tax professional may prepare in a year before being required to file all returns electronically, from 75 to 11, beginning in calendar year 2013.
• Frequently Asked Questions - Questions and answers about the mandate.
• Preparer Opt Out Form
  • This form may be used by preparers to request exclusion from the electronic filing requirement.  Note: Such requests will be handled on a case-by-case basis.
  • For Personal Income Tax only.  Employer withholding opt out requests should not be submitted on this form.
  • To search this form from our forms page, please enter the title of IT EF OPT OUT
• Taxpayer Waiver - This form may be used by individual taxpayers to request exclusion from the electronic filing requirement for preparers.

Other Resources for Tax Preparers

2018

• 2018 Ohio Practitioner Electronic Filing Booklet
• Approved Software Products Tax Year 2018 for Electronic Filing
• 2018 Paper Forms Approval Status
• 2018 MeF Error Codes
• List of Dependent Relationship Options on Sch J
• 2018 Income Tax Returns and Instructions

2017

• 2017 Ohio Practitioner Electronic Filing Booklet
• Approved Software Products Tax Year 2017 for Electronic Filing
• 2017 Paper Forms Approval Status
• 2017 MeF Error Codes
• List of Dependent Relationship Options on Sch J

2015 and 2016 Resources for Tax Preparers

Software Developers — This page contains resources for software developers.

IRS eFile ERO Registration

Tax preparers are automatically registered with Ohio as an Electronic Return Originator (ERO) as long as they are registered and approved as an ERO by the IRS. The Ohio Department of Taxation does not require a copy of the IRS acceptance letter or the IRS 8633. Ohio's only requirement is that preparers use software that has been approved by Ohio.