Deductions & credits

jag9876

Did you make any contributions to your HSA (probably not) or did you take distributions from your HSA in 2024 (maybe?)?

If you did either one, then you must add form 8889 to your return. You do that by going through the HSA interview (Deductions and Credits->Medical->1099-SA, HSA, MSA).

Having said that, the process is geared towards taxpayers who have HDHP coverage, so a little dancing is needed for others, like you.

1. IF you did not make any contributions to or take any distributions from your HSA in 2024, then you do NOT have to report on your HSA on your 2024 return. Thus, when you navigate to the HSA interview (the text in bold above), on the first screen where you are asked about what kind of medical accounts you have, enter nothing. That is, don't check off that you have an HSA account. This is how TurboTax avoids asking you all these questions to build the 8889.

2. But if you did make a contribution to or take a distribution from your HSA in 2024, then you have to check off that you have an HSA on the "what kind of medical accounts you have" screen above.

In the interview, you will be asked if you had HDHP coverage for even one month. Here you answer NO.

This is OK until you get in the Review. TurboTax get confused when people enter HSA information but no HDHP information, so in the Review, there is at least one question about, "did you have Family or Self coverage?" Of course, you had neither, but you can't continue until you check one or the other.

The workaround is to answer Self. This is OK because line 3 on the 8889 correctly states that your annual HSA contribution limit was zero so all the numbers on the 8889 are correct.

So in this context, it is OK to say that you had HDHP coverage in 2024, because by answering the question "did you have even one month of HDHP coverage" with NO, it doesn't matter if you have to say Self in the Review to bypass the error checking in the Review.