Section 3

Transmissions and Submissions

Section 3 Transmissions and Submissions

3.1 | Transmission/Submission Definitions and Limitations

A transmission is defined as a separate package of electronic AIR documents which includes the Manifest and the Form Data File.

• The Manifest contains information about the Transmitter, transmission and the payload.

• The Form Data File contains one or more submissions in XML format.

Transmission Requirements:

• Must consist of one or more submissions

• Must not contain submissions of different types (must not have both Forms 1094/1095-B and

1094/1095-C in the same transmission)

• Must not contain submissions for more than one tax year (for example, must not have Tax Year 2020 and

Tax Year 2021 in the same transmission)

• Must not contain multiple Transmission types (Original, Correction, and Replacement)

• The Form Data File (UI) or Message Transmission Optimization Mechanism (MTOM) (A2A) attachments

may not exceed 100 MB of uncompressed native XML

• Must include the “ TransmissionTypeCd ” that identifies the type of transmission as follows:

Table 3-1: Transmissions Types

Message Transmission Optimization Mechanism (MTOM) attachment is a World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) standard that provides a method of efficiently sending binary data to and from Web services.

For the purposes of this document, a submission is defined as the combination of a single transmittal form (Form 1094-B or Form 1094-C) and its associated information return (Form 1095-B or Form 1095-C). For example, a submission is either:

• One Form 1094-B and one or more Form(s) 1095-B or

• One Form 1094-C and one or more Form(s) 1095-C or

• One Form 1094-C and zero Forms 1095-C, whenever the Form 1094-C is marked as a correction to an

Authoritative Transmittal (for a previously accepted Form 1094-C)

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Transmissions and Submissions

Submission (Form Data File) Requirements:

• The reported number of information returns on the transmittal form (Form 1094-B or 1094-C) must match

the actual number of information returns (Form 1095-B or 1095-C) in the submission

• If a submission is larger than 100 MB, it must be split into two or more transmissions in the following way:

  • in one transmission, the first submission will consist of a single Form 1094 and as many associated

Forms 1095 as will fit within the 100 MB limit

• in the next transmission, the second or subsequent submission(s) will consist of a single Form

1094, and the remainder of as many associated Forms 1095 as can be contained without exceeding the 100 MB size limit

• Must not contain records of different form types (e.g., must not have both Forms 1095-B and Forms

1095-C in the same submission)

• Must not contain records for more than one tax year in the same submission

• If an ALE Member files more than one Form 1094-C, one (and only one) Form 1094-C filed by the ALE

Member must be identified on line 19, Part I, as the Authoritative Transmittal

• If an ALE Member files only one Form 1094-C, it must be identified on line 19, Part I, as the Authoritative

Transmittal

The conceptual structure of AIR Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) MTOM attachments (A2A channel) and the Form Data File attachment (UI channel) are depicted in Figure 3-1.

Figure 3-1: Conceptual Structure of IRS AIR SOAP MTOM Attachments

3.2 | Uniquely Identifying the Transmission

The XML Schemas for Forms 1094/1095-B and 1094/1095-C include elements designed to uniquely identify ACA Information Returns transmissions, submissions within the transmission, and records within the submission.

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Transmissions and Submissions

Transmitters must uniquely identify each transmission with a Unique Transmission ID (UTID). The format for the UTID includes various fields separated by colons (:) as follows:

• UUID – a universally unique identifier (UUID) is an identifier standard defined by the Internet

Engineering Task Force (IETF) in Request for Comments (RFC) 4122. The UUID consists of a 16-octet (128-bit) number. This is a mandatory field: the UUID is represented by 32 hexadecimal digits, displayed in five groups separated by hyphens. For example: 550e8400-e29b-41d4-a716-446655440000

• Application ID – the Application ID will be SYS12 and is a mandatory field.

• Transmitter Control Code – is an uppercase alphanumeric field that will contain the Transmitter’s TCC

and is mandatory.

• Reserved – is an empty field (no space between colons).

• Request Type – the Request Type defines the type of request which must be “T” (Transactional) and is

mandatory.

The UTID for the transmission will be 550e8400-e29b-41d4-a716-446655440000:SYS12:BB002::T

Unique Transmission Identifier (UTID)

Figure 3-2: Layout of Unique Transmission Identifier (UTID)

Every transmission that AIR receives is validated to ensure that the UTID is unique (has not been previously submitted to the AIR System, including previously submitted rejected returns) and conforms to the pattern assigned in the XML Schema. If a UTID is missing, not sequential or not unique, the transmission is rejected, and no further processing occurs. For TY2017, TY2018, TY2019, TY2020, TY2021, TY2022, TY2023, TY2024 TY2025 and TY2026 the UTID can also be used to check the status of a transmission. The Schema allows either the TCC and Receipt ID or UTID to check the status.

Each transmittal (Form 1094) within a transmission will include a Submission Identifier (SID) that will start at one and increment by one for each subsequent transmittal. Do not include leading zeros. The SID is defined in the XML Schema as a non-negative integer which is sufficiently large enough that the 100 MB Form Data File constraint dictates the number of submissions that can be included in a transmission.

Each record (Form 1095) within a submission will include a Record Identifier (RID) that will start at one and increment by one for each subsequent record.

When an error is identified, both Form 1094 and Form 1095 records are uniquely identified within a transmission by combining the Receipt ID, SID, and RID (as applicable), using the pipe symbol “|” as separator and returning them to the Transmitter as follows:

UniqueSubmissionId = RECEIPTID|SID

UniqueRecordId = RECEIPTID|SID|RID

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Transmissions and Submissions

Unique Submission Identifier (USID) and Unique Record Identifier (URID) enable:

• IRS to report errors to Transmitters that are clearly related to the specific record(s) within the submission

and the transmission

• Transmitters to send corrected records to the IRS precisely identifying the record to be corrected

• Both IRS and Transmitters to track transmissions and submissions

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