Federal and Pennsylvania · Tax year 2025
Prepare the return with the whole file in front of you.
GhimTech Tax is preparation software for a practice that files Form 1040 and PA-40. Guided intake, source documents matched to the fields they feed, diagnostics running while you work, and a portal that keeps the taxpayer moving instead of waiting on a phone call.
- Form 1040
- PA-40
- Schedules A–SE
- PA local EIT
- Form 8879
One file, two jurisdictions
Federal and Pennsylvania are prepared from the same record. Nothing is re-keyed into a second product, so nothing drifts between them.
Findings before transmission
Diagnostics run continuously and rank what they find, so anything that would be rejected is dealt with before a submission is ever built.
A portal the taxpayer will use
One short list of what is outstanding, in plain language, with a place to upload it and a signature at the end.
Diagnostics
Every finding, ranked by what it will actually cost you.
A rejection found in March costs a transmission cycle and a phone call. The same defect found while the return is open costs thirty seconds.
- Four severities, distinguishable without relying on colour alone.
- Rejects and errors lock transmission until they are cleared or explained.
- Each finding names the field, the form and the resolution.
- Where a finding anticipates an e-file business rule, the rule is cited.
- Advisory notes surface elections worth considering, and never block.
The workflow
Five stages, from a new client to an acknowledgement.
The same five stages govern the preparer's workspace and the taxpayer's portal, so both sides of a return always agree on where it stands.
- 01
Intake
The taxpayer answers a guided questionnaire that adapts to what they tell you.
- 02
Documents
Sources arrive, are read, and are matched to the fields they feed.
- 03
Preparation
Federal and Pennsylvania are built from the same file, with diagnostics running.
- 04
Review and signature
A second set of eyes, then the taxpayer authorizes the return electronically.
- 05
Filing
Transmit, track the acknowledgement, and correct anything that comes back.
Coverage
Federal and Pennsylvania, prepared together.
Pennsylvania is not a federal return with a different cover page. Compensation, business income, residency and tax forgiveness each follow their own rules, and the software applies them from the same underlying file.
Federal
Form 1040 and the schedules an individual return reaches for.
- Form 1040
- The return, with the filing status and dependent logic behind it.
- Schedules 1–3
- Additional income, adjustments, credits and other taxes.
- Schedule A
- Itemized deductions, tested against the standard deduction.
- Schedules B and D
- Interest and dividends; capital gains and losses.
- Schedules C, E, SE
- Sole proprietorships, rentals and self-employment tax.
- Schedule 8812, EIC
- Child Tax Credit and Earned Income Credit, with their eligibility tests.
Pennsylvania
PA-40, its schedules, and the local return that follows from them.
- PA-40
- The Pennsylvania personal income tax return.
- PA schedules
- A, B, D, UE, C and E, and the compensation schedules that feed them.
- PA Schedule SP
- Tax forgiveness, with the eligibility income calculation.
- Local EIT
- The municipal earned income tax return your collector requires.
- PA-40 ES
- Estimated payments, carried forward into next season.
- Residency
- Resident, part-year and nonresident treatment of the same income.
Coverage is set out in full under supported tax situations and Federal and Pennsylvania. Situations the software does not handle are listed there as plainly as the ones it does.
Documents
A source document is only useful once it reaches a field.
Uploads are read, matched to the return, and put in front of the preparer beside the fields they feed — so confirming a W-2 means looking at the W-2, not at a filename.
How a document is handled
- The taxpayer photographs or uploads it from the portal, on a phone or a desktop.
- It is encrypted on arrival and stored encrypted.
- It is identified by type and attached to the return it belongs to.
- Values are proposed, never posted silently — a preparer confirms each one.
- Anything still outstanding stays on the taxpayer’s list until it arrives.
Electronic filing
What happens between “file” and “accepted”.
Electronic filing is a conversation with an agency, not a button. The software makes each turn of that conversation visible, including the ones that go badly.
1 · Clear the diagnostics
A submission cannot be built while a reject or an error is open. Advisory findings can be acknowledged and left.
2 · Collect the authorization
The taxpayer reviews the return and signs Form 8879 electronically. Both spouses sign on a joint return, and the signed record is retained with the return.
3 · Transmit
The federal return and the PA-40 are assembled and sent, and the submission is stamped with what was sent and when.
4 · Read the acknowledgement
Acceptance closes the return. A rejection reopens it with the agency’s reason attached, and the corrected return is retransmitted as a new submission against the same history.
Client portal
The taxpayer sees the same return, in their own words.
Most of a filing season's friction is a taxpayer who does not know what is outstanding. The portal answers that question on one screen, and keeps answering it as things change.
- A short list of what is still needed, written in plain language.
- Upload from a phone camera or a desktop file picker.
- The prepared return to read before anything is signed.
- Electronic signature for the filing authorization.
- Filing status, from transmission to acknowledgement.
Trust and privacy
What we can tell you about how your data is held.
A tax file is one of the most sensitive records a person owns. Rather than a badge, here is the mechanism — what is encrypted, what is logged, and who can reach it.
- Documents and return data are encrypted in transit and at rest.
- Every view, download and change is written to an audit history with the user, the record and the time.
- Access is granted per role — a preparer sees their assignments, a reviewer sees the review queue, an administrator sees the practice.
- Identifiers are masked in the interface by default and revealed only where the field requires them.
- Sign-in supports a second factor, and sessions expire rather than lingering on a shared machine.
- Retention and deletion are set by the practice, and a deletion removes the document rather than hiding it.
Questions
Before you go further.
Who is GhimTech Tax for?
Does it file the return for me?
What happens when a return is rejected?
How is Pennsylvania handled?
What does the taxpayer have to do?
Where is our data held, and who can see it?
Look at the product before you decide anything.
The overview walks through every part of the software, and the workflow page follows a single return from intake to acknowledgement.