@TaxCat1 @roboyang
Further to the above, I just got off a 52 minute call with TurboTax's customer support line [phone number removed]) about this.
The person I spoke to was a front line customer support line guy, but he seemed to understand the issue and checked up the food chain to investigate the issue. He said that as best they can tell this is a new issue and there is not currently an update in progress that addresses it -- given that, I am not holding out hope for an update before April 15.
The suggestion that was offered was to file the return as TurboTax prepares it and to amend the return after an update is generated to address the issue. That's obviously less than ideal -- who knows when the update will be generated, it's a pain to amend a return, and California holds onto the amount of the credit that was limited until an amended return is filed. Based on this, overriding the line 43 amount on Form 540 seems the best option assuming a file date of no later than April 15.
The representative I spoke with gave me a different number for a help line [phone number removed]) where TurboTax users can submit complaints about the way TurboTax handles certain issues. I will submit a complaint and suggest that other affected TurboTax users do too -- the more complaints they receive the more likely they will be to have their software development team generate an update to address this issue (which may not get attention in the normal course since it is a California-specific issue that, while significant to those affected, only affects a small slice of California taxpayers).
