TurboTax amended return transfers incorrect values from original return, causing non-zero starting amount in refund monitor and incorrect original amounts in form 1040X.

[Lily7]

I am having similar problems. I have to amend a return to report additional Unemployment  and TurboTax generated an amended return incorrectly claiming that I am due over $800 in refund and incorrectly stating that my original return showed me owing $64, which is what the Amended Return should show.  This is beyond frustrating to learn that TurboTax hasn't fixed this problem.

[AmyC]

@Lily7 Here is a workaround.

1. Click this link for instructions on How to Undo an Amendment.
2. Once your amended is back to the software corrected version of your return, you need to:
3. Click on add a state to get into your return but not in the amend mode.
4. Go to federal income, and scroll down to Less Common Income
5. Select Miscellaneous Income
6. Scroll down to Other Reportable Income
7. Enter description and amount  - This is the hard part. If you had unemployment with $10,200 now deducted, then fill in $10,200 for the income. Fill in whatever amount is needed to get your AGI and taxes back to where they were when you first filed your return.This can be a positive or negative number as needed. The description does not matter, it won't be visible.

This puts your tax return back to what it looked like originally. Now you can log off, log back in, click amend, and do your amended tax return.

[Lily7]

Thank you! I did not try your suggestion because I had already found a "solution". I manually worked the amended return, then went into the TurboTax incorrect return and went into Forms. I then manually replaced the incorrect numbers with the correct numbers. My way only works if you can do the Amended Return by hand, reading through the IRS instructions. So hopefully your way is easier for others experiencing the same issues. Thanks again for replying. 

[369lisa]

I'm trying to amend my 2020 tax return with the desktop turbotax. The Original Amounts are all zero - nothing pulled in from my filed return. Please advise

[JulieS]

It sounds like you didn't pull in your 2020 .tax file before trying to amend it. 

If you did your original 2020 tax return using the Desktop version, you can simply open your 2020 tax return and select “Amend a return that was filed and accepted.”

If you used TurboTax online to do your tax return, you need to download your .tax file, download the 2020 program and then search for your .tax file and open it before trying to amend it. 

Here is how:

1. Log into your TurboTax account.
2. On your Tax Home, scroll down to Your tax returns & documents, select 2020, then Amend using TurboTax Online.
3. Follow the steps exactly.
4. Download the .tax file for your 2020 return, which you can do from Your tax returns & documents. Do not try to open the .tax file yet.
5. Open the Desktop 2020 software. 
6. On the first screen, select Find a tax file. See image below.
7. On the screen OK, let's get a start on your 2020 amended return, select the reason you're amending and Continue
8. Answer the questions on the following screens. The Refund Monitor will reset to $0—don’t worry, this is normal for amended tax returns
9. When you reach Here's the info for your amended return, select Start next to the info you'd like to change, then select Done
10. Carefully answer the remaining questions to finish amending your return.

If you didn't use TurboTax at all in 2020, you will need to recreate the tax return that you filed in 2020 before trying to amend it.

[nelsonaf91]

I had the same issue 2 years ago. I ended up having to pay the IRS $2500 extra + interest. This year, TurboTax said that I'd get over $10,000 in returns. I got $5,000. The letter from the IRS shows that I entered my numbers correctly into TurboTax, but the software made an incorrect calculation.

[spoede1026]

I'm using TT Deluxe Desktop and am having the same problem. It's not the refund amount that's the issue, it's that TT is transferring radically wrong numbers from my old return to my 1040-X. Like others on this thread, it looks like I will have no alternative but to prepare a 1040X by hand and file my amended return by mail.

I called TT support. The guy I talked to was a nice guy but provided no help at all. From searching this forum it appears that this issue is several years old but apparently is receiving no attention at all from TT.

[isamom1982]

Exact same issue as others have reported for several years, here.  TT pulls in random, wrong numbers from the TT 2021 return that I successfully filed and am now looking to "amend" in TT.  The refund monitor goes to a random $8,895 tax due instead of $0 before I enter any changes.

This is just one more of the dozens of know, multi-year-old malfunctions of TurboTax that Intuit is ignoring while advertising their "no mistakes guarantee." The IRS rejects TT submissions because the TT software mal functions, spitting out wrong numbers. The same applies for depreciation calculation issues, foreign tax credit calculation and submission issues, home office classification issues... and so on.  The list is very long.

Interestingly, my own experience and that reported of numerous customers (including is this thread) is that the customer service reps often just hang up on you or claim no longer to be able to hear you when these issues are brought up.  It might be a Intuit procedure to deal with these hairy, known product defects.

[commodorevic20]

The problem still exists in TT 2022.  I pulled in my 2021 taxes and the refund meter immediately jumped to over $6000.  Looking at the 1040-X there were lots of numbers that were just plain wrong.  The worst was that it increased the amount that I had paid in taxes last year by about $6000.  I was able to manually copy over the prior year's number (from third column to the first) on 1040-Xto establish a $0 refund and then make the changes from there.

[nelsonaf91]

Seriously? Response doesn’t answer the original complaint for one thing. The other is that Turbo Tax should fix this AND issue refunds to all those you’ve messed over. This has gone on for years.

Folks find a new tax preparer. Turbo Tax went down the toilet 5 years ago and it isn’t coming back. 

You will get the run around, hung up on, and cheated…but you can pay extra money if you want to get cheated twice in one yea If you want to do that their “expert” can talk to you if you put your number in. But as soon as they realize you have a legitimate complaint, you are “whoops” gone. They can’t answer your questions or give any legit info because they have no idea what your form says because they can’t see it. They wouldn’t know why the software didn’t work anyway. Don’t pay for this “service” and especially not their “tax expert” advice. 

[nelsonaf91]

AMEN. Why not give us our money back? Your software is messed up by your own admission. 

[pos_taxsoftware]

This %X&&$## problem still exists in the 2023 version as well.  What is the sam hell does it take for TTax to fix their pos software.  Trying to simply add a forgotten 1099-INT and as soon as a start the amended return, instead of $0 owed, it starts with $84 owed since it transferred an incorrect AGI from the original return.

Ridiculous!!!!

[pos_taxsoftware]

Figured out to fix it in the 2023 desktop version. 

Go to Forms

Open the 1040-X form

Click on the cell with the incorrect imported data and press CTRL-D to override the value (type in the correct value).

You need to do this for all of the cells with incorrect values on the 1040-X including the net change amounts back to $0. 

After you correct line 20 back to $0, the top of the TTax page should also show $0.

Now you can go make your corrections (for example, in my case I needed to add another 1099-INT).

Hope it works for you as well.

[lawsonm]

Thanks @pos_taxsoftware. Overriding the incorrect entries on the 1040-X form before making amends did the trick for me when attempting to amend a 2022 return. Thank goodness I didn't file based on the faulty numbers which would have only delayed things and caused even bigger problems. It's an absolute disgrace that this is a known problem apparently for years and still isn't fixed. I've never held Intuit in high regard for their corporate ethics and this is further confirming evidence.

[stzollner1]

The same problem still exists in the Turbotax Deluxe for Windows software for the 2023 tax year. The AGI amount is carried over incorrectly from the original return to the amended return. The workaround is to edit the 1040X form manually and copy over the incorrect amounts from the original return.

Since Turbotax makes claims of accuracy for their software and since this has been reported repeatedly by many users over the past five years, it is disappointing that (1) this cannot be fixed from one year to the next and (2) that there are no comments from the Intuit company on this forum.

I did not call tech support to report a bug, since other users have reported that this is useless and leads nowhere. I write code myself, so I know how easy it is to get something wrong, but I also realize that my code is useless (and I would never give it to others) if it creates the wrong output.