John, the optimist in me wants to believe we are making progress: Your 3/27/2023 reply offered an erroneous interpretation of Montana Rule 42.15.215 (4) and was refuted by the Montana Department of Revenue representative who I contacted. You are now suggesting that this TurboTax failure to give an interest exclusion to me (while giving an $800 exclusion to my wife) may reflect an entry error.
Your advice pertains to TurboTax Online, but my 2022 TurboTax is from a CD purchased from Costco. Is there a possibility that the problem that I and another user are encountering is specific to the TurboTax CD product?
In answer to your 3/29/2023 reply: Even before my 3/26/2023 TurboTax Community post, I had verified that the relevant information was correct, and since then I have done multiple rechecks of it. In Easy Step, the entered ages for me and my wife (both over 65) and the joint ownership (“This interest belongs to... Both of us”) of the CDs from which the interest is derived, are correctly entered. These results are also confirmed in TurboTax Forms (1099-INT forms from the relevant banks; and Montana Form 2, Page 1 which lists us as >65).
Here is a summary of the facts as I know them:
- TurboTax 2021 gave the Montana Senior Interest Income Exclusion of $800 to both my wife and me (total of $1600).
- TurboTax 2022 gives me zero Montana Senior Interest Income Exclusion while giving my wife an exclusion of $800 (total of $800).
- In both 2021 and 2022, my wife and I have each qualified for the $800 exclusion, based on our ages (>65), on the interest income correctly reported from 1099-INT forms for our jointly owned CD accounts, and on this interest income exceeding $1600.
- The apparent discrepancy in Montana tax reporting between TurboTax 2021 and TurboTax 2022 has not been explained by your responses to my TurboTax Community post. The realist in me says that no remedy will be found and that it’s time to file my Montana taxes and put this frustrating experience behind me.
