@jup wrote:
@Opus 17
Do you know, if I override the form or the worksheet or the interview, will it get rejected as an efile? I thought I read somewhere that it won't go through with an override. Thanks again!
What you need is not an override. It is simply a manual entry in Forms mode using line 5c of the Schedule C adjustment worksheet. Line 5a is your taxable wages, line 5b is your housing allowance, and line 5c is the adjustment for clergy expenses. Making the entry to line 5c on the worksheet simply reduces your income subject to SE tax, you aren't breaking it down into mileage, supplies, and so on.
(Those three lines are combined into one dollar amount which is your income subject to SE tax. The IRS never actually sees the adjustment worksheet, and as a practical matter, the the IRS would never know if the reason you report (for example) $10,000 of SE wages is because you had $5000 taxable income and $5000 housing allowance, or $5000 taxable income, $6000 housing allowance, and $1000 of expenses.)
It's not an override because you are entering data in a place it is meant to be entered. Direct entry may void the accuracy guarantee, but it does not prevent e-filing. And it only "may" void the accuracy guarantee, because according to an Intuit VP who posted here a couple years ago, making direct entries can sometimes affect "dependencies" (calculations that are interrelated). But direct entries that don't affect dependencies should not void the accuracy guarantee.
An override is a forcible overriding of a calculated value with something different, and overrides do prevent e-filing. Typing in a form is only an override if you have to use the "override" menu command, if the form or worksheet accepts your information it's not an override.
Turbotax has so many internal worksheets where interview questions are combined to create a single entry on a tax form, that often you can only change a number on a tax form by either overriding it, or making the change on the worksheet the number came from--which is always preferable. In this case we know exactly where you need to make the data entry on the worksheet so you don't have to override the actual tax form. (Sorry that was a long explanation.)
