SEC. 15. SPECIAL FORM 941

REQUIREMENTS - OCR SPECIFICATIONS

.01 The official Form 941 and Schedule B (Form 941) are designed in OCR/ ICR format. The Service has the capability to machine read these forms by optical character recognition/image character recognition (OCR/ICR) equipment (Scan-optics 9000 Series), if submitted in acceptable OCR/ICR format.

.02 Form 941 and Schedule B (Form 941) may be produced either in OCR/ ICR scannable format or as black and white substitute forms which can be recognized by the scanning equipment. The specific criteria in .03 and .04 apply if the substitute form is to be produced for OCR processing. Specification for black and white substitutes are in Section 16.

.03 An acceptable substitute OCR/ ICR Form 941 or Schedule B must be an exact replica of the official reproduction proof with respect to layout, content, and required OCR/ICR characteristics.

.04 The specific paper requirements which must be met for the development

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of substitute (privately printed) forms generally duplicate those specified in Part B, Section 13, with the following exception:

1 Size—Form 941 trim size must be 8 ¹ ⁄2� X 11�. .05 The specific ink requirements which must be met for these forms include the following:

1 Print Color—Black and Red 2 Ink—Red ink must be a highly reflective (not less than 80%) OCR/ICR type ink, such as Sinclair/Valentine J6983 or an exact match. Black ink reflectance must not be greater than 15%. 3 Handprinted Boxes (including the numbers outside the boxes)—These handprinted boxes (for IRS entries and use only) are included on the reproduction proof, and should be printed as a 50% screen value of the recommended OCR/ICR red ink. Inks used for handprinted boxes must be 15% or less when tested using the MacBeth or Kidder testers (see #5 below).

4 Face Margins—Minimum margins require ¹ ⁄2� head; center sides; and ⁵ ⁄16� foot.

5 Testers—The following two print testers may be used for Form 941. Any other type tester must first be approved by the IRS.

(a) MacBeth PCM–II Use ‘‘C’’ scale. The Print Contrast Signal (PCS) must range between .01 minimum to .06 maximum.

(b) Kidder 082 A Use infrared scale. PCS values must fall in the range of .12 minimum to .21 maximum. White calibration disk must be set at 100%. Sensitivity must be set at ‘‘1’’.