IRS Form 4852 Line 6 'Employer's or payer's TIN (if known)' does NOT require the entry of a TIN or any other number, when the payer actually doesn't have one. The IRS accepts Form 4852 with line 6 left BLANK.
In 2017 when TurboTax started choking on all zeros for Form 4852 line 6, I contacted an IRS help agent for advice. The agent instructed me NOT to enter a bogus TIN when the payer doesn't have one, just to make TurboTax happy. He instead instructed me to just leave line 6 blank.
The problem is: TurboTax chokes when line 6 is left blank, signaling an error that prevents completing or e-Filing the return.
Advising users to report foreign pension income as 'miscellaneous' may allow TurboTax to avoid fixing this Form 4852 problem when the entire gross pension amount is taxable. But what about when the gross pension amount is not all taxable, because of a cost basis?
Every year I file Form 4852 because I do have a cost basis in the foreign pension. The pension's gross distribution and taxable amount are reported on Form 4852 lines 8a and 8b respectively. So every year since 2017 I have filed a PAPER federal return (while ignoring the TurboTax error resulting from blank line 6 on Form 4852) because TurboTax refuses to e-File the return, even though Form 4852 is completed per IRS instructions.
The Solution: Why not just fix TurboTax, so that it accepts form 4852 with line 6 remaining blank, per IRS instructions? How difficult can it be to fix this software problem, which has persisted for years? Why does TurboTax continue to require a fictional TIN to be entered, contrary to IRS directions? If it's good enough for the IRS, why isn't it good enough for TurboTax?
