Turbotax has updated their desktop versions. Unfortunately they have an error, either in their instructions or in their calculations. And their phone support on this is not very good.
1. On schedule 1 where they calculate the amount of unemployment that is taxable, things are good. As an example consider that the the unemployment amount (LINE 7) is $15,200. LINE 9 then is the taxable unemployment: $15,200 - $10,200 = $5,000.
2. The form called Social Sec is where the error occurs. This form calculates amount of Social Security benefit that is taxable. Line 3 is the sum of lines 2a, 2b, 3b, 4b, 5b, line 7 from your 1040. AND LINE 9 FROM SCHEDULE 1. From above LINE 9 is $5,000. What turbotax is using is LINE 9 from Schedule 1, which is the entire unemployment about ($15,200).
Either turbotax is referencing the wrong line from Schedule 1 in their instructions for line 3 in Social Sec or they are adding in line 7 when they should be adding in line 9.
The net result is that the calculations they are using do NOT exclude the $10,200 from determining how much social security is taxed. This is consistent with answers I've seen in this blog (unfortunately!). Turbotax needs to clean this up.
But as I said I'm not sure they have phone folks that are able to follow what's going on.
