IF things remain the same for 2020 taxes, as the Online software for prior years.
1) Yes, there is a way to "transfer" the desktop prior year ...into the next year's "Online" tax software. BUT...but not much transfers... all your personal information and a lot of tax forms, mostly empty of $$ data.....carryover data for things like capital losses not used, some unused energy credits, and the like...... and a few basic total values that are only used for comparison, and certainly the tax history worksheet with those totals....as long as the year-to-year transfer remains unbroken.
2) the actual .tax2019 datafile will not show up in the Online account, nor can it be read form the Online account. (nor will the PDF file, if you created one). All those files for 2019 and earlier years...anything created with the desktop software, will need to be saved and backed up off computer yourself.
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3) Also, some folks don't realize, that a single year's full tax data file created in Desktop ...that cannot be uploaded and opened by the same-year "Online" software. Though the reverse can be done...a single year's Online full data file can be downloaded and opened by the same year's Desktop software. Thus a 2020 desktop tax file cannot be uploaded and used by the 2020 Online software.
......(unless that capability is changed in the future...but I kind-of doubt it will since I'm sure they would be concerned about uploading viruses into the Online system)
____________*Answers are correct to the best of my knowledge when posted, but should not be considered to be legal or official tax advice.*
