When filing Form 990 or 990-EZ, a validation error may occur related to the public support percentage reported in Schedule A, Part II, Section C, Line 15. This percentage should reference the previous year's Line 14 but may trigger an error if the value does not meet the IRS's formatting requirements.
Example of Validation Error
"The 'http://www.irs.gov/efile:PublicSupportPY170Pct' element is invalid - The value '0.0000098084' is invalid according to its datatype 'http://www.irs.gov/efile:RatioType' - The TotalDigits constraint failed."
How to Fix the Error
To correct this issue in Form 990 or 990-EZ, follow these steps:
From the Main Menu of the tax return, select:
Additional Forms and Schedules
Schedule A - Supplementary Information
Navigate to Part II - Computation of Public Support Percentage
Locate Public Support Percentage from 20xx
Enter 0.001 (even if the line already appears to have a value)
After making this correction, save the changes and proceed with filing.