Bug found in Turbotax 2021 for line 12b

Forum|Forum|4 years ago
February 16, 2022
5 replies
0 views

I've read the thread pertaining to the TurboTax Line 12b "error" but the solution requires one to remove the charitable contribution entries. I don't believe a TurboTax customer should have to do that because the reason one enters that info is to enable the TurboTax program to determine whether one should itemize or take the standard deduction. In our case, TurboTax properly determined that we should take the standard deduction. However every time I run the review, the program states there is an error in line 12b and displays $300. In fact because we are married filing joint, and per the 1040 instructions (see below) we are allowed to deduct $600 because we donated more $600 to our church. It's OK for the review to bring this to the customers attention, but there should be nomenclature included that describes the allowable deduction. I copied and pasted from the 1040 Instructions below, (I did remove hyphens from the words that were broken in the 1040 columns).

From the 1040 Instructions document pertaining to Line 12b:
If you don't itemize deductions on Schedule A (Form 1040), you (or you and your spouse if filing jointly) may be able to take a charitable deduction for cash contributions made in 2021.

Enter the total amount of your contributions on line 12b. Don't enter more than $300 ($600 if married filing jointly).

The contributions must be made to organizations that are religious, charitable, educational, scientific, or literary in purpose. See Pub. 526 for more information on the types of organizations that qualify.

AnnetteB6

Level 15

You are correct. For the 2021 tax return using the Married Filing Joint filing status, you are allowed to deduct up to $600 in cash contributions to charity without claiming itemized deductions.

If you follow the instructions below, you will be able to claim your charitable contributions up to $600 in addition to your standard deduction without deleting any charitable contribution entries you have made.

If you are using the Married Filing Joint filing status AND using the standard deduction:

As you go through your Federal return and you have entered your charitable contributions, you will not see any additional questions regarding your inputs. If your state return also allows you to deduct charitable contributions, then the amounts you entered will be taken into account on your state return.

After you have finished your state return and you are getting ready to file, when you run the final Review, you will probably see this message:

1040/1040SR Wks: Charitable Contributions: Charitable contributions has an unacceptable value

You will also see a place at the top of the screen for Charitable contributions with '300' in the box. Below that box, you can see your Form 1040 line 12a which shows the amount of your cash contributions that you already entered.

If your line 12a is greater or equal to $600, enter '600' in the box at the top of the screen.

If your line 12a is less than $600, enter your line 12a amount in the box at the top of the screen.

After changing the input at the top of the screen to the correct value, proceed through any other errors that may pop up and then move forward to file your return. It is very important that you do not revisit any other section of your return before you file or the change may not be retained or able to be changed a second time.

See the screenshot below for reference:

**Say "Thanks" by clicking the thumb icon in a post. **Mark the post that answers your question by clicking on "Mark as Best Answer"

CateeAuthor

Level 2

Thank you for the reply, and that is what I have been doing every time I run the review. My point was that rather than TurboTax making this look like an unacceptable entry (the error states "Charitable contributions has an unacceptable value") and potentially frightening customers into zeroing out the entry when they are entitled to it, instead the information should be provided to educate the customer. Perhaps the error message could be changed to something like "Charitable Contributions allows an entry under certain conditions, click here for more info" allowing customers to educate themselves about the requirements.

308Tom

Level 2

Sure seems like a no-brainer to me. Filled in Sked A, did not meet threshold for itemizing this year, but did have in excess of $600 charitable deductions from ItsDeductible input. When Standard Deduction is selected seems like this should automatically carry over to 1040 Line 12b. But I found if I manually enter 600 in the box at 1040 line 12a, and enter again at 1040 line 12b, it seems to work. Ran verification process and did not throw an error.

This should be an automatic carry over . . .

KM90

Level 2

Yes, unfortunately I've spent 3 days searching TurboTax and the IRS website to finally find the answer in Pub 526 and had to force the entry as TurboTax doesn't handle it correctly when you don't itemize.

$136 in my pocket not donated to the pain of having to do adjustment at a later date - or as someone in the house said - 2 tanks of gas!

Fix the software Please! 20+ years using TurboTax and the first major bug I've found!

2wabitts

Level 2

I AGREE! There is a bug either with Turbo Tax or MN Revenue site. PLEASE FIX it.

mk223

Level 2

I see a ridiculous work around for this issue, but no real resolution. I paid a lot of money for the software, I shouldn't have to do a work around, which doesn't even work.

amberjordan28

Level 2

I found that if you leave the field blank at the top of the screen when running through the review process, Turbo Tax will make the changes and then allow you to continue with an e-file. If you put in a $0, it will see it as a dollar amount and will continue the error message without allowing you to proceed through the review process and e-file.

Joe S

Level 2

I ran into the same issue, i.e., I want to itemize instead of taking the higher standard deduction, in order to get an overall lower tax considering both federal and state. TT customer service identified the problem with the automatic insertion of $600 as being a bug that is under investigation as Investigation #19984. TT has a workaround that involves first putting in a higher number, say $700, manually and then erasing it, and not doing any further 'reviews.' Yes, it worked for me and allows a correct Federal and State tax return to issue, but it will not allow e-filing because when you get to the e-file button, it pops up that there is 0 in line 12b which is what it should be, but the bug apparently thinks otherwise. TT told me to sit still as they have 'thousands' of bugs and are working on this, and I have until Oct to file the return by which time hopefully the bug will be fixed. Seems strange though. I suppose one could just print out the correct federal and state returns and mail them, but that is not what we are paying TT to do.