@bogalur_native
Logic I used was …
1) The error in Form 1116 was the carryover amounts.
2) I don’t HAVE TO take Foreign Tax credit for past carryovers this year - IRS allows me to roll them forward for 10 years. So why not get this year’s filing done? In any case, I will get credit for Foreign Tax Paid in 2021 in this year’s filing!
3) I reset the total carryover from the past to $0. Went through filing, and still saw the error. I guessed that showing any value in that box will create an issue. What if I just left the field blank?
4) Used “Cut” and tried again. It went through to the e-File page.
5) Checked the pdf before filing to see what the IRS may see. Saw 2 things …
(a) TT had re-calculated the total carryover cell and had included all my incoming rollovers in the doc that was being transmitted to the IRS.
(b) Also reviewed Form 116 which showed I was using this year’s Foreign Tax Paid as a tax credit but not using past carryovers. So the IRS would know that I had incoming rollovers but didn’t use them this year.
6) This then became a no-brainer for me. The choice was to
(a) Wait till 3/31 to file using past carryovers for a credit this year (maybe even on 3/31 TT would force me to file by snail mail which I really don’t want to do), or
(b) e-file today and roll-over past carryover credits to next year when Form 1116 Sch B will hopefully be available for electronic filing?
That was a no-brainer in my instance since the past carryovers were not too high. I really needed to get my taxes done and really hated the idea of paper filing.
And pushing prior carryovers to next year didn’t feel too much of a compromise.
I realize not everyone will have the same calculus. As someone posted, their past carryovers were $500 and they didn’t want to push those over to next year. In that situation it likely made sense for them to wait to 3/31 and use Form 1116 Sch B to get the credit this year. In my case, the past carryovers that I could’ve used this year were lower, and I felt ok about pushing them to next year.
I hope sharing my thought process (as well as the counter approach taken by others) helps readers decide what’s best for their situation.
