What you would do:
- On Form 1040, Line 26, list your total estimated tax payments. This amount is transferred from the Tax Payments Worksheet. Enter your agreed allocations and dates of joint estimated tax payments into the fields on the Tax Payments Worksheet for both federal and state taxes (and local, if you have that). The total federal estimated tax payments will then transfer to Form 1040 (Line 26).
- On Form 1040, Line 38, list your estimated tax penalty (if any). This amount is transferred from Form 2210. On Form 2210 Line 8, you’ll need to follow the TurboTax guidance for “About Line 8.” The IRS provides additional guidance in IRS Publication 505 (in the middle of page 23, “2019 joint return and 2020 separate returns”).
- With that calculated share of the tax return entered on Line 6 of Page 2 of the Federal Carryover Worksheet (you’ll need to follow the TurboTax guidance for “About Line 6.”), the number is then multiplied by 1.1 and transferred to Form 2210, Line 8.
- For the spouse that was not the primary SSN in the previous year, you’ll likely be checking Box “E” in Part II on Form 2210, which signals the IRS to look at the previous year’s joint tax return for the tax payments. The other (primary) party’s SSN will be on the front page of the Form 1040 under “Spouse’s Social Security Number.” No need to make that notation elsewhere.
In our case, we only had estimated tax payments to consider; we did not have any credit elected from the joint return during the prior year, so we didn’t encounter nor look into that issue. Also, we didn’t use TurboTax’s Step-by-Step instructions. So, if this laborious process is actually covered in their program (I don’t know whether it is), then you might let it walk you through the process instead.
Regarding the possible mismatch of payments and rejection of both forms, I can only tell you that ours appears to have gone through OK. (Worst case is that they’ll send you a letter asking for explanation.)
As for making notations on the form, that works well if taxes are done on paper but, isn’t practical when filing electronically.
There was a recent decision on the unemployment income issue. They say if you haven’t filed yet to wait. They’ve extended the filing deadline to May 17th to give time to work this.
Good luck.
