Technical Specifications Guide For Reporting Agent Authorization and Federal Tax Depositors
Section 04. Conventions And Definitions
Publication 1474 — Technical Specifications Guide For Reporting Agent Authorization and Federal Tax Depositors · 2026-10-03 edition · updated 2026-10-04 · United States
Section 04-01 Conventions
RAs submitting their initial, add or delete lists electronically must conform to the ASCII character set.
RAs that submit their initial, add or delete lists electronically via SLFT B2B must conform to the following file naming conventions: Example: aaaRAF5001###YYYYJJJ.txt
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| File Name Element | Entry and/ |
|---|---|
| aaa | The initial characters of the file name must be the 3 or 4 character Reporting Agent’s SLFT B2B Account Name. |
| RAF5001 | The literal “RAF5001” identifies the project and must follow the Reporting Agent’s SLFT B2B Account Name. |
| ### | This element must follow the literal “RAF5001” and specifies the sequence number, in ascending order beginning with “001”, of the transmission made by the Reporting Agent on a particular day. For example, if the Reporting Agent submits three files on a particular day, the first file would contain the sequence number element “001”, the second file would contain “002” for this element, and the third file name would contain “003” for this element, |
| YYYY | The current calendar year, |
| JJJ | The current Julian date. |
| .txt | Each electronic file name must include the file name extension “.txt” in order to pass firewall restrictions. |
Section 04.02 Definitions
| Element | Description |
|---|---|
| ASCII | American Standard Code for Information Interchange Blocked Records Two or more records grouped together. |
| Blocking Factors | The number of records grouped together to form a block. b Denotes a blank position. |
| EIN | Employer Identification Number. |
| File | A file consists of all records submitted by an RA |
| FTD | Federal Tax Deposit |
| Julian Date | The number of the day of the year (1-365, or 1-366 for leap years |
| RA | Reporting Agent |
| RAA | Reporting Agent Authorization |
| Record | A group of related fields of information treated as a unit. |
| Reporting Agent | A Reporting Agent is an accounting service, franchiser, bank, service bureau, or other entity authorized to perform payroll services for other businesses. |
| Reporting Agent List | A Reporting Agent’s List identifies taxpayers for whom an RA will perform authorized payroll services. |
| Special Character | Any character that is not a numeral, letter or blank. |
| Taxpayer | Person or organization liable for the filing of returns and payment of tax. The taxpayer will be held responsible for the completeness, accuracy and timely submission of all returns they are required to file and payments they are required to submit. |
| YYYYMM | YYYY = Four digit year; MM = ending month of the tax period (01-12). Examples: first quarter 2025 returns = 202503; fourth quarter 2025 returns = 202512; calendar year 2025 returns = 202512. |
| YYYYDDD | YYYY = Four digit year; DDD = Julian Date. Examples: January 1, 2025 = 2025001; February 21, 2025 = 202552. |
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