An even easier solution: I went into the forms and changed the "ES & W4 Wks.” first set of check boxes to indicate “by making estimated tax payments.” This then seemed to eliminate all traces of the W4 forms that were generating the error.
Presumably, it will print out estimated payment vouchers, but one can still change your withholding at work instead. The frustrating thing is that properly calculating things like this are why we are PAYING for TurboTax, and when there are obvious errors, it makes one question the rest of the software.
Tried using the IRS W4 calculator, the witholding result was almost an order of magnitude smaller. Now I don’t know who to believe.
If anyone at TT is reading this: the whole W4 easystep process needs review: entry boxes that don’t work right, results that always report that the taxible income for next year is zero, the subject errors in review… all very bad.
