3/5/22. What I did to duplicate my success both in getting a CREDIT for Foreign Taxes Paid (Deduction DID NOT help me), and in enabling me to EFILE both Federal and State, was to START ALL OVER (an experimental 2021 return). I clicked start new return, then used my 2020 return as the flow through. From there I started STEP by STEP. My stock brokerage has a 'flow through' so all the dividends, interest, MISC, royalties, etc., all are added into TT automatically. With that done, following in Step by Step, Personal, Deductions and Credits, click Foreign Taxes, AND then I had choices whether to use Foreign Tax Credit Carryovers from prior years. When the list of prior year carryover credits came up, first I tried just zero'ing the 2020 carryover, but then earlier carryovers popped up, then with clicking Back a few times, a screen appeared saying Do you have any Foreign Tax Carryovers for 2020 or a prior year? AND THAT's where I clicked NO. In the Step-by-Step process. And I proceeded with Step-by-Step filling out the various coutries and amounts. (NOTE very important [you might miss this in a TT note]: the FIRST country to LIST [forget how your broker listed them] is the one that paid the most Dividends and charged the most in Foreign Taxes!) . In doing so, I lost $44 from a 2020 FT Carryover, but I gained many hundreds in 2021 FT credits and could then efile.
In my minds eye, that made a difference in avoiding the "no efile possible, must print, line 10, Schedule B, line 3" bull**bleep** (from there I filled out the Form 1116 Copy 1 and Copy 2 (I had four sources of foreign taxes [BTW each country is a source, e.g., Russia (column A for my first company), Canada (column B for 1 company), and Canada (column C for another Canadian company]). Note, too, there are columns in filling out Form 1116 and its correlative worksheet, that'll say "o" or "q" "dividend", or similar, but what's wanted is the TAX you paid that entity (country), not the dividend income from that source! When I got done, I noticed in FORMS that all the necessary "Explanations" pertaining to Copy 1, 3, A; 2, B, etc., had also automatically been printed out, since they're necessary to cure "errors" when you get to Review.
