[surprise answer at end] I did nothing special on my TurboTax this time. I did have more legit unreimbursed medical expenses than usual, but not enough to get any federal relief. I also coincidentally cashed out my HSA in 2022 when I finally accumulated enough multiyear expenses to justify asking for a reimbursement (my reason for waiting was saving the fees to the HSA holder by keeping the balance over a threshold). I see that even though my CA Part II line 1 is slightly less than line 3, and line 4, column A is thus zero, TurboTax has entered a mystery amount into line 4, column C. Wondering where that came from, I tried adding on paper line 1 to my reported HSA distribution and then subtracting line 3 from this larger amount, and voila!: exactly that amount is on line 4, column C.
So it appears that TurboTax has already given me the credit that is being discussed here without me trying to game the system. So perhaps nothing to do here, folks?
