Error on Form 6252 Installment Sale Income for Estate Return 1041

[BraJo]

I am the executor of an estate that received income from an installment sale of the decedent's farm including primary residence. In years prior to the decedent's passing, they filed Form 6252 with their Form 1040 return. I am doing the estate's taxes using TurboTax Business 2019 to file the Estate Return Form 1041. 

The program is giving an error on Form 6252 saying that line 15 ("If the property described on line 1 was your main home, enter the amount of your excluded gain. Otherwise, enter -0-") should be blank.  But since it WAS their main home when they executed the installment sale, they entered a non-zero value on that line in their tax return the year the sale was made (this affects the Gross Profit Percentage, line 19).  Is the program in error in saying line 15 should be blank? The property was farming property (hence I selected 3, Farming Property, for the property type code on line 1) that included their primary residence/main home, hence they have excluded gain for the value of the home.

What do I have to do to fix the error?

[tagteam]

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@BraJo wrote:

What do I have to do to fix the error?

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I suspect you may have to contact Support via the link below.

https://ttlc.intuit.com/community/using-turbotax/help/what-is-the-turbotax-phone-number/00/25632

Frankly, the program is most likely not expecting the entry of a figure on that particular line, for the Section 121 exclusion, because it is presuming the estate, itself, sold the property (in which case the exclusion would not be applicable nor allowed). 

Otherwise, you can simply ignore the error and then print and mail your return.

[BraJo]

The property was sold in 2011 on a 10-year installment plan, when the decedent and her spouse were both alive.  The sale was very definitely NOT initiated by the estate.  It seems to me the program should ask about this rather than assuming the sale is done by the estate.

Thanks, I will contact Support.

[BraJo · Accepted solution]

Problem solved by Support!  The agent agreed that the program was assuming the installment sale was initiated by the estate, which would not be eligible for the exclusion, but that the exclusion was valid because the sale of the property which included the primary home was initiated while the decedent was still alive (in fact, 8 years prior to her death) and eligible for the exclusion.  The agent recommended increasing the cost basis of the property sold (line 8 ) to include the amount of the exclusion, which yields the same result with no error.