My mom passed away in December.
Given that information, TurboTax correctly had me fill out a Form 1310 - Statement of Person Claiming Refund Due a Deceased Taxpayer.
I am the one e-filing the return.
What TurboTax did not do was tell me that the birth date for the person filing the return should still be my mom’s and that the California ID information should still be my mom’s.
Since I’m doing the filing, I put my birth date in the first location and my California Driver’s License information in the fraud prevention location.
As a consequence, the Federal filing was rejected for wrong birth date and the wrong ID information.
California filing was rejected because the Federal filing was rejected.
Now, I must give TurboTax credit, I did receive e-mails regarding both rejections which directed me to re-open the return for my mom to fix the problem. However, when I was taken to the location of the two errors, there was no further direction to change the information in either location back to my mom’s information. I assumed that was the case and changed the information back to my mom’s and resubmitted. Both filings were then accepted.
My suggestion: If TurboTax has a Form 1310 filed out by a user, pop up a page next which explains to the user that the filer’s birthdate and ID information are for the deceased person, not the one doing the filing.
It would also be helpful given a Form 1310 in the forms generated if the cover page of the Electronic Filing Instructions for your 2019 Federal Tax Return had a reminder to sign and MAIL the Form 1310 to the IRS Center where a paper return would have been filed.
