It does appear that TurboTax improperly suggests that a prior-year excess can be treated as a current-year excess, which is probably where TurboTaxBillMc's suggestion came from. However, telling TurboTax that you will obtain a return of the prior-year excess contribution by the 2017 filing deadline will not cause TurboTax to remove the penalty for 2017. The fact that TurboTax asks the question under these circumstances is misleading.
