Thank you for your response Mike.
There were two separate disbursements from the settlement at different times during the year. The second was indicated as "residual fund disbursement".
Both W2s in question are for my spouse. We file jointly and I have no W2s. She has already met the social security payment maximum as indicated in her other regular (non-settlement) W2 (same employer, same name), thus the excess from the two settlement W2s.
Regarding the options you mention, the thing is that I already claimed the excess as calculated, reviewed and efiled by TurboTax. Now the IRS is questioning this claim. My concern is why would TurboTax not flag this during the review stage if checking the EINs is an important condition to claiming the SSN excess, especially since TurboTax doesn't check them as you say.
I am only now learning about this after filing my return because of the IRS letter and then finding the TurboTax notes on the 1040/1040SR Worksheet that I need to check this. It's not very helpful now.
So I believe my only option right now is to prove to the IRS that this claim is indeed an excess and it has been correctly credited. Hopefully they will agree.
Maybe TurboTax should compare the EINs or at the very minimum prompt the user as a "needs review" item and explain this better before the return is actually efiled.
Thanks again.
