On March 10th, I completed our taxes and tried eFiling our return. Our federal return (married, filing jointly) was rejected (and subsequently the State was also rejected) because my dependent daughter filed her taxes a few weeks earlier and mistakenly claimed herself as a dependent. More specifically, Turbotax reported, "This return has been rejected by the IRS because you claimed a dependent as an exemption on your tax return, but this dependent has also filed their own tax return claiming a personal exemption." The instructions said that the return wouldn't be accepted unless my daughter amended her return to show she did not claim herself as a dependent. Or, I could edit my return and not claim her as a dependent. Since she was a student and lived with us for most of 2017 (pays no rent, etc.), we still want to claim her as a dependent. The instructions also said I could just mail my return and the IRS would discover we both claimed her as dependent and they would contact us to sort it out. We thought that option would be too much of a hassle.
After discovering this mistake, my daughter generated an amended return and along with a check for $4 (the difference it made with her refund amount) sent it by USPS certified mail (you cannot eFile an amended return) on March 12th to the IRS office in Fresno, CA, specifically for amended returns. Tracking reported her amended return was finally delivered March 21st. Her $4 check was listed as being withdrawn from her online checking acct balance on March 23rd, so clearly, the IRS processed the check.
However, when you use the IRS website to check the status of her amended return, it returns, "We have no record of an amended return. An amended return appears in our system approximately three weeks after we receive it." I thought since the check has been cashed it would mean they've processed her amended return, so I tried eFiling again and it was also rejected. I suppose we just need to be more patient.
BTW, the second time we tried eFiling, the Turbotax instructions seemed different. It no longer advises me to have my dependent send an amended return. It says I can either delete her as a dependent and try eFiling again, or if I still want to claim her as a dependent on my return, I must print and file by mail.
Should I stop waiting for her amended return to be accepted before eFiling again and just print and mail our return?
