I have purchased TT for the past 10 yrs. Hard drive crashed, no longer have program or returns. I need to file multi-year amends, do I need to purchase TT for each year?

[rjs · Accepted solution]

When you posted your question you indicated that you are using TurboTax Online, but the nature of your question suggests that you used the CD or download TurboTax software. What are you actually using?

If you purchased downloads from TurboTax.com, the downloads should still be in your account, at least for the last three years. You can just download them again with no additional charge. If you purchased CDs from TurboTax.com there may also be downloads in your account, which you can download at no charge. In either case, make sure you sign in with the exact same user ID that you used when you made the purchases. You can access your downloads at the following link.

https://turbotax.intuit.com/commerce/account/secure/downloads_unlocks.jsp

If you can't find downloads in your account, call TurboTax customer service and see if they will give you downloads for the years that you need. Go to the following link to get a phone number to call, during the hours that customer service is open. The current hours are Mon - Fri, 5:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. Pacific time.

https://support.turbotax.intuit.com/contact/

Not having the original returns might be the bigger problem. You need the .tax20xx data file for each tax return that you want to amend. If you used the CD or download TurboTax software, TurboTax does not have copies of the data files, even if you e-filed. If you don't have backups of the data files you would have to recreate each original return in TurboTax before you can start to amend it, and make sure that it exactly matches the return that you filed. You can get transcripts of your returns from the IRS at the following link.

https://www.irs.gov/individuals/get-transcript

Customer service might tell you to use the special amend software instead of giving you downloads of the full programs. But you can't use the amend software if you have to recreate the files. The amend software can only open an existing .tax20xx data file. It cannot create a new tax return.

Note that it is too late to get a refund from an amended return for any year prior to 2014.

[Benglen]

I cannot find my original exact efiled turbotax file. I can find close but not exact and when I try to make it exact it never gives the same final numbers. I think maybe my original file had glitches. How can I possibly amend my file then? Can I just go with the closest file? Help???!!!???