When I was finished with my taxes, it said I will receive a refund of 914. Error check didn't find anything. After I filed it, I discovered I was actually getting a refund of 794. I investigated by reopening my tax. After first, it would go blank whenever I go to the Investment Income -> Stocks section. After a few attempts, it finally opened. I then followed these steps:
- Clicked on Edit on a brokerage (National Financial Services LLC).
- Clicked on Edit on one of my ESPP entries (the first one) that I had already entered.
- Clicked on continue on the Review page.
- Clicked on Continue on the "Next, we'll help you figure out your cost basis" page
- Clicked on Continue on the "Tell us about your ESPP sale"
- Clicked on Sounds good on the "Now, we'll walk you through entering the rest of your sales info" page
- It was at this point, my refund changes from 794 to 914.
- Clicked on Continue on the "Tell us about your ESPP discount" page
- Clicked on Done on the "Here's your purchase info for the ESPP shares you sold"
- Clicked on Continue on the "Great, we've adjusted your ESPP cost basis" (but refund amount doesn't change)
- Clicked on Continue back on the Review page
- Clicked on Continue back on the "Your investment sales summary" page
- Clicked on Continue on the "Let's review your employee stock plan results"
- I'm now back on the Wages & Income section and my refund is now incorrectly at 914.
What I found was that when I return to an ESPP entry and hit continue on everything (I don't change anything), the Employee Stock Transaction Worksheet line 28 ("Amount reported as compensation income for 2023") gets blanked out. Hence, the compensation income is not getting included in my return. As result, I get more taxes back which is not correct.
The behavior happens to any ESPP I return to. It blanks that line out. Not sure if it happens to others. Reporting it here so it can be investigated. Fortunately, my income tax did get reported correctly since I didn't return to any ESPP entry. I'm still not sure though how it initially corrected itself from 914 to 794 before I sent it in. The Smart Check did not find anything wrong.
