Get your taxes done using TurboTax

Chondel,

I appreciate that someone from TurboTax is finally responding to this issue; however, the answer you gave about deleting the form and letting the IRS calculate your penalty as a workaround to your programming errors in Form 2210 should be rescinded immediately. Or, at the very least, modified extensively.

I will agree you that, if a client has a penalty on Form 2210 based on the IRS’s default calculation, and, if that same client is unable to avail themselves of any of the exceptions noted under Part II (like exception C or D), then yes, deleting the form and letting the IRS calculate will yield the same result as if the taxpayer calculated the penalty themselves.  However, for a taxpayer who has a penalty based on the IRS’s default calculation but can avail themselves of exceptions C or D to mitigate or eliminate the penalty completely, your advice of “everything will be fine if you just delete the form and let the IRS do the calculation” is akin to throwing the taxpayer under the bus.  In this instance, your advice would actually compound the problem that has arose from your programming errors.  For example, if you want the IRS to use exception C, “Annualized Income Installment Method”, to mitigate or eliminate your penalty, you must file Form 2210 and tell them that.  Likewise, for exception D (and maybe A, B & E).  If you delete Form 2210 and let the IRS do the calculation, how in the world would the IRS know you want to use exception C.  And even if by some miracle they figured that out, where would they get the income data to do annualization calculation.  No, if you want to use exception C or D, you must file Form 2210, indicate which exception you want the IRS to use, and then provide them with the raw data to do the alternate penalty calculation.  If the taxpayer just deletes Form 2210 as you are telling them to, the IRS will only do the default calculation and then send the taxpayer a penalty due notice.  And that penalty due notice the taxpayer receives may be entirely the result of your programming errors and your “delete form” advice.

Your advice to taxpayers using one the exceptions under Part II should be something like this.

Do not file your tax return at the present time.  You must file Form 2210 to have the IRS implement the exception you checked under Part II; however, Form 2210 currently has some programming errors that result incorrect numbers being shown in Part IV, Columns (c) & (d), Lines 20 through 26.  We will advise you when the programming errors have been corrected.

I know the IRS was late in releasing Form 2210.  Based on discussions I was following in your various forums, it seemed that it was the last form many people needed before they e-filed.  How many of your customers actually use Form 2210?  Since you have millions of customers, I assume that number is in the thousands, probably the tens of thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands.  Then on February 26 TurboTax released the Form.  Unfortunately, the form was released with programming errors.  And, most unfortunately, those programming errors do not show up when a customer runs the “error check” within the TurboTax software.  So, what do you think all the people that were waiting for this form started doing?  My guess would be they opened up their return, made sure all of their necessary forms were ready, maybe had the TurboTax software do a final review, and then ultimately had the software do a final “error check”.  The error check says the return is clean, no errors, and they are ready to e-file.  I’m guessing that thousands of your customers that use Form 2210 began e-filing.  But wait.  On the same day you released the form, you were told there was a programming error in Part IV.  I told you.  Part IV doesn’t even foot properly.  Job number 760861 on February 26.  I don’t know, maybe the next day you could have pulled Form 2210 back off and said it’s not ready yet while you corrected the issue and therefore limited the carnage of thousands of people filing with incorrect data.  But you did not.  Maybe you could have fast tracked a programming change to correct the issue and, at least, tried to limit the amount of customer returns being filed with wildly incorrect data in Part IV.  But you did not.  It’s now a week later and we are still talking about this.  TurboTax seems to care not one whit about thousands of their customers filing returns with bad data due to their programming errors.

Or maybe you do care.  Maybe a TurboTax employee is currently working on some kind of statement that will be sent out to all your customers.  Maybe something like the following:

Dear Customer,

We need to alert all of you to a programming error that occurred in Form 2210.  The error has now been fixed; however, anyone that filed a tax return between February 26 and (date of fix) and also filed Form 2210 as part of the return may have incorrect numbers in Part IV, Columns (c) & (d), Lines 20 through 26 of that form.  The IRS might assess you a penalty based on those incorrect numbers.  If that happens, TurboTax will assist you in your penalty dispute.  We have prepared a description of the programming error that occurred that you can include in any penalty response you need to send to the IRS.  Our CPA’s can assist you in recalculating the appropriate penalty where our errors may have inflated the penalty you need to pay.  And so on and so forth.

I see there was another update to my TurboTax today and this issue was still not fixed.  It’s now been a week since this error was reported and there is still no fix in sight.  If it is not fixed on Friday, I intend to e-mail the officers I listed above on Saturday.  Their e-mail addresses are on your corporate website.  I would certainly hope you or some other system person who may be following this thread has alerted your systems officers of what is going to happen here.  Taking this issue to a higher level is about the only thing I do have control over.  Evidently, systems does not have a lot concern us customers.  All you need to do is read through this thread to understand that.  They don’t care about thousands of us filing bad returns.  And they are never going to answer us and own up their mistakes.  Maybe, just maybe, it will be different when they have to explain themselves to corporate officers, their bosses.  One can only hope.