It took "a few hour over a few days", but here is finally a "work-aroun" that may be helpful for other Canadian residents who receive SS Benefits and find (to their dismay) that the US Turbo-tax program erroneously inserts a "non-$0" amount on line 20b of their 1040 . . .
Dear Robert,
Thank you for contacting TurboTax Support. You were trying to get your US return to indicate that your SS benefit is non taxable due to the fact that you are a resident in Canada. To get your return to do this, we went to forms and then to the worksheet and on the worksheet overrode the taxable calculation. This did not show as an override in the return and allowed you to efile. If the return does come back rejected for this reason, you will need to paper file. I have passed along your comment re a programming change to make this easier.
Thank you,
Sandra CPA; Intuit Tax Advice
POSTSCRIPT . . . the efile was accepted using this work-around
