E-filing rejected although AGI from last year is accurate. Residing overseas.

[Anonymous101]

What to do when my return was rejected? My 2019 AGI was correctly entered but the IRS wrote to me in January 2021 that they hadn't yet processed my 2019 return filed 8 months earlier. I can't enter a state ID as I reside overseas and only US States ID are acceptable and I no longer have one. If I file by mail it will take them another year at least before I see my Covid refund. What do you suggest? When you live overseas it's not only massively complicated to avoid double taxation but mind-boggling that the IRS won't accept a US passport number as identification. Am I in a catch-22 situation? I'm only trying to get my 2020 e-filing accepted.

Should I enter my 2018 AGI instead as my 2019 AGI because they haven't yet processed my 2019 return? Or should I avoid using TurboTax and use a better tax software that actually works for expats?

[Anonymous101]

I called the IRS. They indicated that when 2019 (prior year) tax return hasn't yet been processed we should enter either 0 for prior year AGI if no Covid payment was received or 1 if a Covid payment was received.

They indicated that if the e-filing continues to fail it's a problem with my tax software vendor (i.e. Turbotax). 

If a moderator from Turbotax is reading, could you please provide advice on how to get my tax return accepted through e-filing? Thank you.

[Anonymous101]

Issue resolved by Turbotax tech team: there's a bug in their software. My return was filed and the IRS has it. Turbotax software says it was rejected and their tech support team cannot see that anything was submitted but IRS has it. Turbotax opened a ticket to fix the bug in their software.