A workaround was brought to my attention by Hbdoyal that allowed me to address the two problems I was experiencing. The workaround was surfaced in the thread entitled " W-2 Box 11 glitch?" by JL-808 on the 3rd page, and refers to a phone conversation with Tom, a tax expert at Intuit (and a someone at a higher level than the specialists who answer the calls). The approach:
1) I completed the W-2 section of TT consistent with the information on my actual W-2. The only subjective approach was that I left Boxes 15 - 17 all blank, even though my actual W-2 shows PA and my employer number in Box 15, and Boxes 16 and 17 show "$0.00". [Leaving these fields blank when there is "$0.00" in the Boxes was recommended to me by two Employee Tax Experts, since placing anything in the fields can trigger parts of the program.]
2) When you answer the TT question that yes, this is a distribution and you have to choose a state, choose Texas. Since there is no state income tax in Texas, doing so doesn't trigger certain parts of the software. that calculates associated state taxes; and doing so does not trigger for you to file a Texas state income tax return.
3) As to the state return (PA for me), you will need to review the applicable state forms to ensure the W-2 income is not being taxed, and that no errors are appearing on the forms. For me, I had to remove a checkmark from column NT/TXBL of the Federal Forms W-2 section of the PA-40 Gross Compensation Worksheet.
Doing the above eliminated the two error messages I had previously received as I attempted various other fixes, and allowed me to e-file both my Federal and PA state tax returns (for which I received subsequent emails of acceptance of both returns.
A special thanks to HBdoyal for surfacing this approach with me. Much appreciated.
