You don't have to follow this thread for very long to know that people are having trouble importing from Etrade into TurboTax.
- We can guess that it is specific to the interaction between Etrade and TT because we aren't hearing from others. Also I was personally successful importing 136 pages from Schwab, and also importing smaller files from TD Ameritrade and Fidelity.
- We also can verify that the consolidated 1099s and stock sale information is not available from the bank but rather from the brokerage, because someone has confirmed they made that error before solving their problem.
- We also know that some people are successful, because the same user confirmed that when they selected E-Trade brokerage rather than the bank that it worked for them, although we don't know how big a file they imported.
- We also know that some users aren't satisfied with manually inputting their 1099s and stock sale summaries and mailing in the supporting evidence, something I have previously explained and have had to do myself in the past. (I wanted to file early, so I never checked back to see when or if it was resolved. It was Schwab in that case.) Really the number of entries is small, and I personally wouldn't switch tax prep programs because of it, although of course it might influence my decision in future years.
- We have also had a user reference an external tool in this thread that apparently worked for them.
Let's be blunt, because we've heard plenty of blunt complaints in this thread. Here is what we haven't heard:
- A TT employee (not a user) admitting that this is a problem.
- A report from an employee team working on it defining the scope of the problem.
- An expression of regret that this continues to be a problem two weeks before April 15.
- An acknowledgement either that a) this is an optional convenience, not a required feature, or b) what specific relief is available to people who face this problem.
As an experienced user, I can offer the following:
- I regret that people continue to be frustrated with their inability to successfully import their tax data from ETrade. I acknowledge that this has been and continues to be frustrating for some users.
- Given how busy both brokerages and TT are at this time, and given that it is not working for some people 2 weeks before April 15, I encourage anyone who is sure they have correctly requested the import and not succeeded to move on with one of two options:
- File an extension, and keep waiting in the hopes that this will be solved this year rather than next.
- Use a work around of your choice. Personally I would suggest you manually enter summaries* and send in your supporting statement if you have a long statement. It's easier to print and mail a hundred pages or whatever to the IRS, than to solve something we cannot control. *In addition to dividends and interest, there are four types of stock sales: short term covered (basis is reported, less than a year between purchase and sale), short term uncovered (basis is not reported by the brokerage,), long term covered, and long term uncovered. All of these, if you have entries, must be reported for each owner. I.e., if you have a grantor controlled trust and a personal account, you need to enter these for each owner/each 1099 you receive that doesn't import.
-
