This has to be a software programming change between 2023 and 2024. And a poorly written one at that. Why? Because I have seven 1099-Rs. I also had seven in 2023. In 2023, it only took one press of the “Continue” button to move to the next input screen. But this year it takes seven? If those seven pushes are unavoidable, absolutely necessary, and expected, then the screen would say so. Somewhere, either directly above or directly below the “Continue” button, it would say “Press the Continue button equal to the number of 1099-Rs that you entered”. Since it doesn’t, I have to assume TurboTax made software code change and got an unexpected result. They didn’t fully test it before they released the software to us. They probably only had one 1099-R in their test file, so, of course, everything worked with just one push on the “Continue” button.
My guess would be that this issue somehow relates to the new question TurboTax asks when you enter your 1099-R from IRAs. The one where it asks you “What is the required minimum distribution for your account in 2024”. That question is also confusing a lot of people since you are not sure whether to enter the calculated RMD for that specific account or what you actually took out that account. And the screen offers no explanation of what you should enter.
Form 8606 needs to know your total IRA withdrawals and your ROTH conversions, if any. You would think that the TurboTax software keeps a running total of those two numbers as you enter each 1099-R. And when you say you are done entering 1099-Rs, it has what it needs to fill out those two lines on Form 8606. That fact that you have to press the “Continue” button equal to the number of 1099-Rs you entered leads me to believe that each time you press the button, the software is going back to one of your 1099-Rs to check something or pick up a number. Something it didn’t have to do last year.
Anyway, just my thoughts on what this issue could possibly be. I could be completely wrong. Maybe a TurboTax employee will weigh in here and tell us what is really going on and how it’s going to be fixed.
