I found a different thread on this forum with the same problem and only just saw this post.
My very elderly, widower father was very upset at the difficulty getting turbotax returns accepted by the IRS. Three times they were rejected because of the error that the prior year agi was incorrect.
Thanks to this forum and several members posting their solution to use freetaxusa instead, yes, that is a solution to be able to e-file and know that both federal and state returns are accepted.
Although my father had to enter everything from scratch (previous years' tax returns all turbotax format) on the freetaxusa website, it was worth it when they were accepted promptly, which is the usual response when e-filing. The difference appears to be that freetaxusa asks for BOTH spouses' state ID information and the IRS wants both the deceased and surviving spouse's ID info to accept the returns. Turbotax never asked for my mother's ID info.
Just FYI that we in the SF Bay Area are in mandatory lockdown and shelter-in-place orders (can only go out for essential medical and grocery needs) to curb the Cov19 virus spread--it's currently through April 7th, but highly expected to last longer. Hence, it's not a recommended time for anyone to go out to the post office and file paper returns.
It's not necessary to file paper returns (and risk a "lost tax return" even with certified mailing--happened one time) if you try freetaxusa. My father didn't like that it's only a website and not software to install, but the most important thing is that the tax returns are filed promptly and accepted.
Now I need to figure out how to get the $24.99 back from turbotax for the State e-filing that was rejected because I had to use freetaxusa.
