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IRS website not working properly in Firefox. Okay in IE

  • 9 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 25 views
  • Last reply by NoahSUMO

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I went to the IRS page to check status on a tax exempt organization. The final results said no such company. The IRS on the phone got it right, When I use IE it works correctly.

Not only that, but this new FF 43.0.1 doesn't work with this forum. I have two accounts, personal and business, with this forum. Neither were accepted. I had to create a new third account just to get here to post this problem.

Something in this version is changing or blocking correct content from reaching other web pages when data boxes are being filled.

I went to the IRS page to check status on a tax exempt organization. The final results said no such company. The IRS on the phone got it right, When I use IE it works correctly. Not only that, but this new FF 43.0.1 doesn't work with this forum. I have two accounts, personal and business, with this forum. Neither were accepted. I had to create a new third account just to get here to post this problem. Something in this version is changing or blocking correct content from reaching other web pages when data boxes are being filled.

Chosen solution

I feel embarrassed.

Since I'd originally been on the phone with an IRS agent testing this and getting no results while she got our company I never thought of a wrong number.

Somehow I'd transposed two numbers. When I went back to an official IRS letter and used that directly, it worked.

Thank you for helping me see my foolishness.

Read this answer in context 👍 0

All Replies (9)

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https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/update-firefox-latest-version 44.*

Many site issues can be caused by corrupt cookies or cache.

  • Clear the Cache and
  • Remove Cookies
    Warning ! ! This will log you out of sites you're logged in to.

Type about:preferences<Enter> in the address bar.

  • Cookies; Select Privacy. Under History, select Firefox will Use Custom Settings. Press the button on the right side called Show Cookies. Use the search bar to look for the site. Note; There may be more than one entry. Remove All of them.
  • Cache; Select Advanced > Network. Across from Cached Web Content, Press Clear Now.

If there is still a problem, Start Firefox in Safe Mode {web link} While you are in safe mode;

Type about:preferences#advanced<Enter> in the address bar.

Under Advanced, Select General. Look for and turn off Use Hardware Acceleration.

Poke around safe web sites. Are there any problems?

Then restart.

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Do a malware check with several malware scanning programs on the Windows computer.

Please scan with all programs because each program detects different malware. All these programs have free versions.

Make sure that you update each program to get the latest version of their databases before doing a scan.

You can also do a check for a rootkit infection with TDSSKiller.

See also:

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Sorry, neither suggestion worked.

FredMcD - I hesitated to delete ALL my cookies. I first went into Safe Mode. No fix. Then I went in and selectively delete all the cookies that deal with the IRS web site. No fix.

cor-el - your suggestion was time consuming. I generally keep a very clean system and have for over 20 years. I downloaded and installed ALL the suggested link programs. One, SuperAntiSpyware kept crashing. AdwCleaner pointed to a registry entry created by Kaspersky as malware. The rest only found a few items I've had for a long time and will keep. So, nothing there helped. Even after all those the problem still exists.

In addition, after reading the info pages, I come to the same conclusion. This isn't acting like a normal malware or virus. It doesn't disrupt anything else I do except the IRS.gov page and using my previous logins for this forum. There are none of the popup problems, multiple tabs, failure to execute commands normally, etc. The only thing I can think of for the Mozilla Forum is that maybe old logins are deleted after so many months of non-use. However, I've used both my normal logins in the last 2 years, 1 in this last year.

This has me stumped and I do have about 30 years of advanced computer experience.

If you want to see what results I get go to the IRS.gov site. Click on "Help & Resources". Next click on the link on the left side under Additional Resources - "Charities & Nonprofits". On the next page in the same area click on "Search for Charities". On this next page click on the BIG button "Exempt Organizations Select Check Tool". Next select 0 "Are eligible to receive tax-deductible charitable contributions", then enter "462479662" which is our IEN and click on the Search button. You should normally get information about our NPO. Now do it again and put in some random number like 123456789 and do it again. If it's not a real company IEN it will come up empty, which is what I get every time. I've tried other proper numbers for other organizations and it works just fine, but not for our number on our computer. Although, our number works on other computers.

Sorry for the directions instead of a direct link. I didn't want to worry anyone about bad links.

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https://www.irs.gov/Help-&-Resources https://www.irs.gov/Charities-&-Non-Profits https://www.irs.gov/Charities-&-Non-Profits/Exempt-Organizations-Select-Check

click on the BIG button "Exempt Organizations Select Check Tool" https://apps.irs.gov/app/eos/

There were no tax-exempt organizations found matching the search values you entered

Did you provide Name, City, State, Country  ??

I did find; Download the entire database of organizations eligible to receive tax-deductible charitable contributions (Pub. 78 data). https://apps.irs.gov/app/eos/forwardToPub78Download.do

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Nothing other than the EIN is necessary. If you don't have that, the other information can help find the company.

If someone wants to download the entire file of several hundred thousand companies and look through the entire list for a single company, that's an option, but not realistic. I don 't want the information (it's us, after all), I want my browser to work properly.

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drkenrich1688 said

Next select 0 "Are eligible to receive tax-deductible charitable contributions", then enter "462479662" which is our IEN and click on the Search button.

... Although, our number works on other computers.

That number doesn't return any results for me in any browser.

Are you certain that is your correct Federal EIN? When I check the form with an EIN from a known charity, it works fine, with or without the hyphen, in Firefox and other browsers, just as it worked for you. For example:

American National Red Cross 53-0196605 Mercy Corps 91-1148123 Mozilla Foundation 20-0097189 Wikimedia Foundation 20-0049703

So either there's a problem with the organization's status in the database used by the site, or that number is wrong. That number also is not found in the file listing 957,621 charities that Fred mentioned.

Modified by NoahSUMO

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I was about to report the same as Jscher. That number is not valid. I tried in both IE and Firefox and it failed.

Please use this site to track down your EIN number for your NPO: http://seriousgivers.org/find-a-charity/

There I searched for March of Dimes & was given this EIN: 131846366 - which works in both IE & Firefox.

Proof: https://apps.irs.gov/app/eos/pub78Search.do?ein1=131846366&names=&city=&state=All...&country=US&deductibility=all&dispatchMethod=searchCharities&submitName=Search

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Chosen Solution

I feel embarrassed.

Since I'd originally been on the phone with an IRS agent testing this and getting no results while she got our company I never thought of a wrong number.

Somehow I'd transposed two numbers. When I went back to an official IRS letter and used that directly, it worked.

Thank you for helping me see my foolishness.

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No worries, we all make mistakes. I'm just glad this wasn't a real bug. :)