@vmann53 There are a lot of potential problems with that approach. First of all, as I said above, Form 8997 must be filed with a tax return that is filed by the filing deadline (including extensions). You might be able to add it with an amendment that is filed by the filing deadline, but getting the original return and the amendment both filed before the deadline would require careful timing, and it's not clear that this procedure would be acceptable.
The amendment would show either deferral of gain or recognition of previously deferred gain (or both) on Forms 8949 and 8997, but you have no way of integrating the changes with the TurboTax return. You would have to recalculate the entire return by hand, which would be difficult and error-prone. And since you then would not have a TurboTax file for the amended return, you would not be able to transfer information from the return to your return for the following year.
If you file your original return without deferring the gain, planning to amend later to defer it, you would have to pay the tax on the gain that you are planning to defer, then wait to get a refund after the amended return is processed. It takes the IRS 4 months or more to process an amended return.
On the whole, this seems like a bad idea. It would be much better to either find software that supports it, or go to a tax professional who has such software.
