@Szfulmer : I'm glad you didn't have any trouble. I wouldn't wish my issue on anyone else. However, if someone else's works, that isn't necessarily comparing "apples to apples" and doesn't negate my issue. That would be like saying "I also drive a Ford, and nothing went wrong with my car." What model was it? What year was it? Was it gas, diesel, or electric? etc.
For anyone who wants more detail:
My issue was specifically on a 2023 tax return.
- Prior to 4/15/2024, that return was started online where all income data entered, and most but not all deductions were entered. It showed a sizable refund. (My first post referred to that situation - income complete, but not deductions. That's why I filed the extension without paying anything - expecting that I was getting a refund, not owing something. )
- The remaining deductions were entered this month (March 2025), on a desktop version. The online version can no longer be used. To continue working on a 2023 return requires installing the desktop version, downloading the online return (which is exactly as it was last year and can no longer be changed), and importing that into the desktop.
- As one would expect, adding the remaining deductions increased the refund shown.
Thus, the online version showed a refund with all income entered but not all deductions, and the desktop version showed a bigger refund once the remaining deductions were entered.
- The Refund Monitor issue (a ~$30k+ swing going from a nice ~$7k refund to owing ~$25k ) occurred specifically with a positive value entered on a K1 (I believe Part III Box 11) that TurboTax failed to propagate until review.
(I hadn't previously completed the review last year because 1) I hadn't finished entering deductions, and 2) I have somewhat complicated returns with multiple K1s. TurboTax has in the past always flagged things in the K1s that made no difference to the total tax, and I hadn't sorted through all those in this case.
There's a saying in the software world - "You can't make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious!" It's always been on the users to know that the Refund Monitor wouldn't be accurate until all income and deductions were entered, though people apparently are dim enough to much worse things (hence all the crazy legal disclaimers). People haven't changed in decades, so why did TurboTax suddenly this year decide that the Monitor needed to go even though it would rile their customers? My guess is that there were plenty of situations like mine that made it a liability worse than losing customers.
