Complete Form 8867 when your firm is paid to prepare a return claiming the Earned Income Credit, the American Opportunity Tax Credit, the Child Tax Credit (including the Additional Child Tax Credit and Credit for Other Dependents), or Head of Household filing status — and then file it with that return. It is a preparer-side compliance document, not a client intake form, and it is not the retain-only acknowledgement you already know from Form 8879. The same formal due diligence rules that require the form also require you to interview the client, document what you were told, and hold five categories of records for a defined period. If any of your preparers determined eligibility or figured an amount for one of those benefits, that preparer owns a Form 8867. See the official Form 8867 and its instructions.
A quick definition helps set scope: Form 8867 is the Paid Preparer's Due Diligence Checklist, a checklist completed by the paid preparer who determined the taxpayer's eligibility for, and the amount of, the listed credits or HOH filing status. The form edition you use should follow the applicable tax year's IRS form and instructions rather than one fixed edition for all years.
Who completes the form
Only paid tax return preparers should complete Form 8867 (IRS instructions, Purpose of Form). A preparer who is paid to prepare a return claiming any of these benefits must complete the form and meet the other due diligence requirements (same source). Note the phrasing: it is not limited to the person who signs. If you are the only paid preparer on the return you are the signing preparer; if another preparer handled a different benefit, that person completes a separate Form 8867.
In practice this creates a two-role split that your workflow should model explicitly:
- Signing preparer. Signs the return and is the person the submission routes run through.
- Nonsigning preparer. Determined eligibility or the amount for a benefit but does not sign; must provide the completed form to the signing preparer in electronic or paper format.
The example in the instructions is the cleanest way to hold this in your head: one preparer determines the EIC, a coworker determines the AOTC and signs the return, so two Forms 8867 exist for one return and both end up filed together.
Knowledge, reasonable inquiry, and file evidence
The checklist maps to the regulatory due diligence steps rather than to credit eligibility rules. You should check the boxes corresponding to all benefits for which you determined the taxpayer is eligible, and complete the related parts (Form 8867, Part I header; see Instructions for Form 8867).
The knowledge requirement has two components: interviewing the taxpayer, asking questions, and contemporaneously documenting the responses; and reviewing information to determine eligibility and figure credit amounts (Part I, Q3; Part VI, A). If information appeared incorrect, incomplete, or inconsistent, Question 4 requires reasonable inquiries (4a) and contemporaneous documentation of those inquiries (4b). The file should also show that the taxpayer was asked about providing documentation to substantiate eligibility and amounts if the return is selected for audit (Q6).
Submission routes
Form 8867 must be filed with the taxpayer's return or amended return claiming the benefit (Instructions, Purpose of Form). This is the line that separates it from Form 8879, which is signed authorization your firm retains rather than an attachment to the filed return; see our guide on Form 8879 for that side of the engagement. Match the route to your role and filing method:
| Situation | What happens to the completed Form 8867 |
|---|---|
| Signing preparer, e-filing the return | File the completed form electronically with the return |
| Signing preparer not e-filing and not mailing for the taxpayer | Give the completed form to the taxpayer with instructions to file it with their return |
| Signing preparer mailing the return to the IRS for the taxpayer | Mail the completed form to the IRS with the return (after the taxpayer reviews and signs the paper return) |
| Nonsigning preparer | Provide the completed form to the signing preparer in electronic or paper format |
| Multiple Forms 8867, paper return | Attach all Forms 8867 to the return |
| Multiple Forms 8867, e-filed return | Transmission accepts up to four Forms 8867; all must still be retained |
Because a return can carry more than one Form 8867, your closing checklist should ask "how many preparers determined eligibility or an amount on this claim set?" rather than "is the form done?"
Five-record retention checklist
This part is mandatory, not a best practice. You retain for 3 years from the latest of the applicable dates (Instructions, Document Retention):
- A copy of Form 8867.
- The applicable worksheet(s), or your own worksheet(s), for any credits claimed.
- Copies of taxpayer-provided documents you relied on to determine credit or HOH eligibility and to figure the credit amount(s).
- A record of how, when, and from whom the information used to prepare the form and worksheets was obtained.
- A record of any additional information relied upon, including the questions you asked and the taxpayer's responses.
The latest-date conditions, matched to role:
- Due date of the tax return (not including extensions) — applies as the baseline date.
- The date the return was filed — if you are a signing preparer electronically filing the return.
- The date the return was presented to the taxpayer for signature — if you are a signing preparer not electronically filing the return.
- The date you submitted to the signing preparer the part of the return you were responsible for — if you are a nonsigning preparer.
Records may be kept on paper or electronically as described in Rev. Proc. 97-22 (or a later update) (Instructions, Document Retention). Track the file with two columns, a filename plus the basis date, not with a tax year alone.
Useful context: Form 8867 records date to the return year, so push your office tax organizer checklist toward the current year's facts and keep due diligence documentation separate from the intake record.
Required versus optional controls
Firm controls are controls, not due diligence requirements in their own right: they exist to make the mandatory steps reliable and to show reviewers how the file was built.
| Required | Optional practice controls |
|---|---|
| Complete the form; meet the knowledge requirement through interview and contemporaneous documentation; make reasonable inquiries where information is inconsistent; submit the form; retain the five records | Template question prompts, a reviewer sign-off, a naming convention, a retained notes log |
| Correct filing route and timely retention window | Verified intake review ownership or separate file tracking |
Regardless of what software outputs, retention timing is your firm's responsibility.
FAQs
Q1: We e-filed the return, so is Form 8867 somewhere in the e-file package or is it just retained? It is filed with the return under the applicable route, so treat it as part of submission and as a record class of its own.
Q2: Our firm's organizer already asked the client for documents. Does that cover due diligence? The organizer supports intake, which is a separate step from due diligence. Due diligence is its own requirement about interviewing, reviewing, documenting, and retaining, so the completed organizer does not replace Form 8867 or the knowledge and retention rules. See our tax organizer checklist guide.
Q3: Who keeps a copy if a nonsigning preparer does the work? The nonsigning preparer provides the form to the signing preparer, and the records to retain remain the same five-record set.
Q4: Is the number of Forms 8867 capped at one per return? No. More than one is possible; the files must all be attached (paper) or transmitted (e-file) and retained.
Q5: How long do we keep it? Retain for 3 years from the latest applicable date described above; the clock runs from whichever of those dates is most recent, not from a single fixed date.
Check your firm's current practices and resources when you build the closing checklist.
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