In July, 2020 our joint return for 2019 continually rejected when I tried to eFile. I had to indicate in the beginning of preparing the return that my husband died 02/24/2020 even though this was the 2019 return. After reading the community board I discovered I had to make myself the “taxpayer” (first position) and my husband the “Spouse” which switched our designations, social security numbers and pins. Immediately our returns were accepted and I was done.
WHAT I DID NOT KNOW WAS THAT WHEN I SWITCHED FROM SPOUSE TO TAXPAYER, TURBOTAX AUTOMATICALLY SWITCHED OUR NAMES ON ALL OUR 1099-Rs. It makes no sense why this would happen because when you enter a 1099-R it automatically asks if it belongs to John or Jane. If you answer Jane, why should the 1099R switch to John just because you became the “taxpayer” and your deceased husband became the “spouse”?
Because of this, I now think this may be why I have been pulling my hair out trying to get TT to tax my 2020 IRA distribution after two weeks of frustration. Because TT erroneously threw my name onto my husband’s 2019 traditional IRA 1099R, it is somehow causing the cash distribution I took in 2020 to not be taxable. (THERE IS NO IRA BASIS....a question I have answered a million times.) A couple of Level15 TT people are trying to help me but it wasn’t until today that I realized there was a glitch in our last year’s returns. If you have a deceased spouse and have to swap “Taxpayer” and “Spouse” after your returns are completely finished, go back and check your FORMS to see if the correct names are on the 1099-Rs and all other FORM entries.
