I am preparing 2021 taxes using TurboTax for Mac. My itemized deductions are about $150 more than the standard deduction. I live in Maryland which requires you to take a (very small) standard state deduction if you take the standard deduction on your federal return.
After entering all deductions into Turbotax and watching the "Maximizing Your Deductions and Credits" animation, I get a screen saying "you're getting the maximum refund possible. Good News: You're getting a standard deduction of [x]."
Continuing to the next page, the screen says "We've Chosen Itemized Deductions for You"...your federal itemized deductions of [x+$150] are your best option because they will save you more money than the standard deduction of [x]."
Which totally contradicts the previous screen.
When I select "change your deduction method," it shows "itemize" already checked.
When I go to the Maryland state return, TurboTax defaults to the standard deduction, even though "itemize" is checked in the federal return. This reduces my Maryland refund by well over $1000 compared with itemizing. There is no option to manually change the deduction method on the state return, presumably because TurboTax is aware that Maryland doesn't allow using a different deduction method.
I tried adding a dummy charitable donation of $500, making my itemized deductions $650 more than the standard deduction instead of $150 more. The program behaved properly then, displaying an itemized deduction on both of the Federal pages above and itemizing deductions in the Maryland return.
Is there a way to request a bug fix from intuit other than calling and waiting on hold to talk with an agent? As it is, I can't use the program to calculate estimated taxes accurately, which I need to figure out in the next couple weeks. Thanks.
