I'm a licensed minister (dual-status employee with a housing allowance) who works for a ministry organization, but I became licensed in February. Therefore, there was a little bit of money withheld for Federal, State, Social Security and Medicare for the month of January when I was still just a W-2 employee. But, from February onwards there was no money withheld from my paycheck -- rather, I had to start paying estimated quarterly taxes.
TurboTax won't let me file my tax return, and keeps giving me this message, "Housing W-2 Box should not be checked if social security or Medicare tax has been withheld on this W-2."
The problem is, my missions organization sent me one W-2 that has my housing allowance on it and all the money I made last year, plus the money that was withheld in January. I've asked them if they can send me two W-2s instead, one being the month I wasn't licensed, and one being the month that I was licensed. But they said they are unable to do that, and recommend I see an accountant rather than use TurboTax because of this situation.
Since I've already spent more than $100 on TurboTax, I just wanted to check. Is there anything I can do on my end about this error, or will I just need to have an accountant file this year?
