I am currently receiving 3 monthly annuities from my former employer: one payment is made through a qualified pension trust; the other two payments (a pre-2005 benefit and a post-2004 benefit), are both made through the employer’s assets, as those two payments are “non-qualified.” The qualified annuity is reported on a 1099R; the two non-qualified payments are reported on W-2s, both of which have the annuity amounts listed in boxes 1 and 11. The annuities commenced as follows:
Post-2004 annuity – June 2021
Qualified annuity – June 2022
Pre-2005 annuity – June 2022
In 2021, TurboTax did NOT include the pension exclusion amount in my New York State return (I reached age 59 ½ prior to 2021.) In 2022 and 2023, TurboTax did calculate the exclusion amount and put it into my tax returns. Upon further research, it appears the software trigger for the credit is the 1099R for the qualified benefit. The way I determined this is I input a “hypothetical” 1099R into my 2021 return, and the pension exclusion amount appeared on my NYS return. In addition, I deleted the 1099R from my 2023 return, and the pension exclusion amount disappeared.
Based on the research that I did, it appears the non-qualified payments are eligible for the exclusion. In order for me to file an amended return for 2021, I need to input the pension exclusion amount into TurboTax. I know I can put in an override in the appropriate cell, but the software will prevent me from e-filing a return with the manual override input. I have the following two questions:
- Is this a software glitch, or am I misinterpreting the regulations?
- Is there a way to systemically get the exclusion input so I can e-file an amended return?
