Form 13424-A – LITC General Information Report Guide

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Three small mistakes account for most of the Form 13424-A reports that stall in review: an EIN that picked up a stray space, an Interim Report period someone treated as running cumulative-to-date, and a Year-End Report someone tried to limit to the back half of the year. None of them is a tax error. All of them slow a grant compliance review.

Form 13424-A is the LITC General Information Report, and every clinic funded under IRC § 7526 files it twice each grant year, the Interim due July 31 and the Year-End due March 31. The activity counts on Lines 1A through 10C drive the review, and the program guidance carries its own thresholds, including the 90 percent representation rule and screening clients at or below 250 percent of the federal poverty guidelines.

Key Takeaways

• Form 13424-A is the LITC General Information Report used by clinics to document structure, services, client eligibility, staffing, funding, and program outcomes for the LITC grant. It remains listed as Rev. April 2016 on IRS.gov.
• The LITC program sits under OMB Control Number 1545-1648 with related forms, reports, and narratives referenced in Publication 3319 and the grants materials.
• Expect to report accurate identifiers, EIN, contacts, fiscal dates, program year, funding, case metrics, and outreach statistics. Keep data aligned to internal records and prior filings.
• Follow the embedded instructions in the April 2016 PDF. In that revision, key “how to submit” guidance appears mid document, often referenced as page 3.
• Clinics generally screen for income at or below 250 percent of federal poverty guidelines and assist ESL taxpayers, consistent with LITC program guidance (IRC §7526 requires at least 90 percent of represented taxpayers to meet that 250 percent FPL limit, not 100 percent, so up to 10 percent may exceed it).

What Is Form 13424-A and Who Needs It?

Form 13424-A is the five page, fillable General Information Report for the IRS Low Income Taxpayer Clinic program. You use it to show how your clinic is structured, what services you deliver, how you determine client eligibility, and what outcomes you achieved. In short, it is the program snapshot LITC needs for oversight and grants administration. As of this writing, the form still shows Rev. April 2016 on the IRS forms index.

Who files it, nonprofits and law school clinics that operate recognized LITCs, plus other eligible organizations participating in the LITC grant program. If you run an LITC or you are maintaining grant support, you will complete 13424-A with the rest of your LITC package as required by OMB 1545-1648.

A quick refresher on the program, LITCs represent low income and ESL taxpayers in disputes with the IRS, including audits, appeals, and collections, and they provide education and outreach. Clinics are independent of the IRS, even though they receive partial funding. Many clinics screen at 250 percent of federal poverty guidelines (the rule applies to at least 90 percent of represented taxpayers, not all of them) and typically focus on controversies with less than 50,000 in dispute per taxable year (the §7463 limit is per tax year, not per case, so multi-year disputes are measured year by year).

Do You Qualify, and When Should You File?

First, confirm you are operating as an LITC that serves low income or ESL taxpayers through representation or education. Check your current year income screening policy and make sure it aligns with LITC guidance, most clinics use the 250 percent standard. Then, align your filings with the LITC reporting cycle (two Form 13424-A submissions per grant year, an Interim Report covering January 1 to June 30 and a Year-End Report covering the full January 1 to December 31 grant year) and the grants portal schedule set by the LITC Program Office. New and continuing grantees coordinate through Publication 3319 and the LITC grants portal, which uses ID.me to verify users.

If you are new to LITC reporting, build your calendar backward from the due date. Start gathering case counts, outreach numbers, staffing, demographics, and funding totals well before the deadline so you can reconcile everything against your internal systems.

Eligibility Requirements

You are in scope if you deliver controversy services, audits, collections, appeals, or litigation, or if you provide taxpayer education for low income or ESL individuals. Clinics generally screen for income near 250 percent of federal poverty guidelines and follow program rules for grant recognition and reporting. If that describes your operation, you should be completing the General Information Report each cycle to maintain compliance.

Ideal Filing Timeline

• Confirm clinic eligibility and services early in the cycle.
• Map your internal reporting dates to the LITC calendar and the grants portal.
• Pull identifiers, prior year EIN and fiscal dates, and contact info, and reconcile them to your board records.
• Begin monthly rolling tallies for case metrics and outreach so year end is a compile, not a scramble.
• If the grants portal or instructions change, follow the LITC Program Office and Publication 3319 guidance.

I have seen clinics save days by assigning one owner for identifiers and one owner for case data. Two owners, fewer mismatches, faster filing.

Documents and Data You Will Need

Get these lined up before you open the PDF.

• Clinic identifiers, legal name, EIN, physical and mailing addresses.
• Primary contact, name, title, phone, and email that will be reachable during review.
• Program year and fiscal dates, make sure they match prior filings.
• Funding details, current grant number, award amount, match and in kind support, and any non IRS sources cited in Publication 3319 guidance (matching funds must come from non-federal sources on a dollar-for-dollar basis, and general institutional overhead of the sponsoring organization cannot be counted toward the match).
• Program activity, case counts by issue category, representation versus education, and outreach events.
• Staffing, attorneys, enrolled agents, accredited reps, students, volunteers, plus service languages and hours.
• Supporting materials, signed certification page, proof of eligibility screening policy, redacted eligibility examples, staff qualifications, and any referenced notices or dockets if you cite them in your stats.

Quick Prep Table

Section	What to Prepare	Why it Matters
Identification	Legal name, EIN, addresses, primary contact	Precise matching reduces IRS follow up
Program Status	New or continuing, program year, fiscal dates	Confirms correct cycle and continuity
Staffing	Counts by role, service languages, hours	Supports capacity, education, and coverage
Case Metrics	Clients by issue and population	Substantiates mission and outcomes
Funding	Grant number, award, match, non IRS sources	Ties to OMB 1545-1648 package items
Certification	Signature, date, and title	Required to validate the report

How to Complete Form 13424-A, Step by Step

Open the current IRS PDF for Form 13424-A. Complete it electronically to reduce clerical errors. The IRS listing confirms the latest revision as April 2016, use that version unless IRS updates the file.

• Identification, copy your clinic’s legal name exactly as registered, then enter EIN, addresses, and the primary contact. Use the same formatting as prior years to avoid system mismatches.
• Program year and status, mark new or continuing clinic, enter fiscal begin and end dates, and ensure they match your grant records.
• Staffing, list personnel and volunteers by role, and capture hours for representation, education, and outreach.
• Services snapshot, describe representation and education activities, and note languages served.
• Case and outreach metrics, tally clients by issue type and population, and summarize outreach sessions and attendance.
• Funding, enter IRS grant amount, match and in kind contributions, and any non IRS sources.
• Attachments, prepare the signed certification, staff qualifications, and examples of eligibility documentation, redacted.
• Internal verification, cross check EIN, fiscal dates, and grant numbers against prior-year filings.
• Finalize, lock the PDF or export a clean copy for your records.
• Submit, follow the instructions in the form and the LITC Program Office guidance for where and how to submit, commonly through the grants portal schedule tied to Publication 3319. In the April 2016 PDF, key submission instructions appear mid document, often referenced as page 3.

Pro Tip, Build a One-Page “Stats Source Map”

I ask clinics to create a simple source map that answers one question, where does each number come from. For example, staffing comes from HR rosters dated June 30, case counts come from your case management system filtered by “Closed in Program Year,” outreach comes from event logs. When a reviewer asks for backup, you have it in one place.

Download and Submit Form 13424-A

• Download the current Form 13424-A directly from IRS.gov, confirm you see Rev. April 2016.
• Follow the embedded instructions, including the submission section, and the active LITC grants guidance in Publication 3319 and the LITC Grants portal resources.
• Keep a finalized copy, store it with your grant file, and record who submitted and when.

Note, the LITC Program Office regularly communicates deadlines and the annual grantee conference schedule through IRM and program channels. Plan your reporting and training around that calendar so you are not compressing year end work. The IRM notes that the Annual LITC Grantee Conference is generally the first full week of December, after grantees are selected.

Small habit, big payoff, name your file with year, form, and version, for example, 2026_Form-13424-A_Final_ClinicName.pdf.

Common Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

Looking at LITC reports across grant years, the same patterns drive most of the back and forth with the Program Office. Below are the five I see most often on Form 13424-A submissions.

Compliance, Controls, and Version Hygiene

• Source of truth, keep the IRS PDF of Form 13424-A and the year’s Publication 3319 in your grant folder.
• Single owner for identifiers, one person is responsible for EIN, fiscal dates, and contacts.
• Single owner for data, one person pulls case metrics from your case system with a saved filter.
• Controls, use a two person review, one checks content, one checks attachments.
• Retention, store your final PDF and all evidence in a locked folder with access logs.

A quick note on training, the IRM indicates the Program Office supports grantees through webinars, calls, and the Annual Grantee Conference. Use those touchpoints to validate your process before crunch time.

Step-by-Step Completion Checklist

• Check version, confirm Form 13424-A shows Rev. April 2016 on the IRS site.
• Confirm eligibility, services to low income and ESL taxpayers, controversies and outreach.
• Gather identifiers, legal name, EIN, addresses, primary contact.
• Align fiscal dates and grant numbers with last year’s submission.
• Compile staffing by role, attorneys, EAs, students, volunteers, plus languages and hours.
• Compile metrics, clients by issue, population, and outreach counts.
• Compile funding, IRS award, match, in kind, and other sources consistent with Publication 3319.
• Prepare attachments, signed certification, redacted eligibility examples, credentials, and any referenced notices.
• Complete the PDF electronically, keep field formatting consistent.
• Submit per the form instructions and the grants portal guidance, then archive your final copy.

Simple Story, Why Accuracy Beats Speed

A clinic once tried to close the report in a single afternoon. They finished fast, but they missed that their fiscal year shifted after a board vote, and the EIN field carried an extra space from a copy paste. The reviewer flagged both, which meant new signatures, new exports, and a week of delay. The fix was easy, a 20 minute pre flight check with a two person review. Your future self will thank you.

Where Accountably Fits, If You Run a Firm That Supports Clinics

If your CPA firm or accounting team supports nonprofit clinics behind the scenes, disciplined workflow is the difference between smooth filings and long review loops. This is where a structured offshore delivery model can help, when it is built with SOPs, standardized workpapers, layered reviews, and clear SLAs. That combination protects quality, speeds reviews, and keeps your leaders out of endless edit cycles.

Accountably integrates trained, U.S. led offshore teams into existing firm systems, QuickBooks, Xero, Thomson Reuters, and more, with SOP driven execution, structured workpapers, and multi layer review so you retain control while you scale. If you support clinics, that means faster reconciliations, cleaner evidence packets, and fewer last minute surprises. Use it where it adds value, never as a shortcut.

Reusable Checklists

The checklists below are copy-paste ready for your clinic SOP folder. Each step lines up with a Form 13424-A line item or a Publication 3319 requirement, so a junior staffer can run the report packet without senior-level rework.

Keep 13424-A Season From Stalling

The LITC reporting calendar is unforgiving, two Form 13424-A filings per grant year, an Interim Report due by July 31 covering January 1 through June 30 activity, and a Year-End Report due by March 31 of the following year covering the full calendar year. For the 2026 cycle, the LITC Program Office funded roughly 138 clinics across about $20 million in awards (per IRS Publication 3319, Rev. 5-2026), and IRS-funded LITCs collectively represented 21,000+ taxpayers and reached 161,000+ individuals through educational activities in 2024 (per Taxpayer Advocate Service program data). That volume runs through the same small grant compliance teams every year.

The teams that finish each cycle without scrambling treat the report as a year-round data hygiene problem, not a two-week sprint in June and February. The pattern is repeatable: a single owner for staffing and funding data, a saved case-system query for each line group, and a documented match-funds tag before any dollar is recognized in the grant ledger.

• Saved exports by line group: one query for Lines 1A through 1D (outreach), one for Lines 2A through 3D (educational and attendees), one for Lines 6A through 6C and Line 7 (consultations), one for Lines 8 through 10C (referrals, TAS, returns prepared).
• Period discipline: hard-coded Jan 1 – Jun 30 filter for the Interim Report, hard-coded Jan 1 – Dec 31 filter for the Year-End Report, never cumulative-to-date.
• Match-funds tagging at the journal-entry level so general institutional overhead never lands in the 1:1 match total.
• Case-count rule baked into the case-management system: one controversy equals one case, even when both spouses sit on the engagement.
• Pre-flight checklist run two weeks before each deadline, with a two-person review covering identifiers, Lines 1A through 10C totals, attachments, and signature blocks.

This is the kind of structured compliance load that benefits from a disciplined delivery model rather than ad-hoc seasonal hires. Accountably builds U.S.-led offshore tax delivery with documented SOPs, layered review, and turnaround SLAs, so the report packet is ready for sign-off before the deadline pressure hits.

FAQs

What is the LITC Annual Grantee Conference and when is it held?

It is the program’s national meeting with training and updates for grantees. Per the Internal Revenue Manual, it is generally held after grantees are selected and usually the first full week of December. Expect new grantee training and program sessions coordinated by the LITC Operations group. Always follow the current year notice from the Program Office.

What is Section 24 of the Internal Revenue Code?

Section 24 covers the Child Tax Credit, not child and dependent care. If you are writing about child and dependent care, that is Section 21 and is claimed on Form 2441. For current code text, see Section 24, and for care expenses, see Section 21 and the Form 2441 instructions.

What is Form 15111?

Form 15111 is an Earned Income Credit worksheet used with IRS CP09 notices when the IRS believes you might qualify for EIC but you did not claim it. It is not an LITC grant form. If you received CP27, the related worksheet is Form 15112.

What income level do clinics generally use for eligibility?

LITC guidance commonly references 250 percent of federal poverty guidelines for representation, with clinics retaining final discretion. The statutory rule under IRC §7526 is that at least 90 percent (not 100 percent) of represented taxpayers must have income at or below 250 percent FPL, so up to 10 percent of represented taxpayers may exceed the threshold without disqualifying the clinic. Always check the current TAS LITC guidance for the year you are reporting.

Can we submit Form 13424-A electronically?

Follow the directions in the form and in the LITC grants portal communications. The Program Office uses the portal for applications and reporting, and it requires identity verification through ID.me. Monitor Publication 3319 and the LITC Grants page for the current process and deadlines.