ESPP/RSU issues on Turbo Tax 2020

[cszabo2]

TurboTax 2020 works nearly fine for 1 ESPP sale. If you have like I do 2 ESPP vesting periods a year and 2 sales, the second overwrites the first. So you can only get the basis adjusted to one of them. The only solution I found or the best one, was to ignore the ESPP thing and the 3922 stuff and just do the thing by hand, that is say that the reported basis is wrong, compute the adjustment myself and leave it at that without mentioning that this is ESPP.

[PS11]

Where do we get this update that corrects this SW error?  Why can't TurboTax put it in their SW update for all? I just started TurboTax again today and it did not download any updates and I just ran into the same ESPP error.

[teksplorer]

Intuit has not fixed the bug. If you want them to fix it you need to call them and complain to them on the phone. They don't monitor the user forums.  The more people call them, the higher chances they will fix it.

[brazilian_sf]

I called support yesterday and spent 1 hour with them to show the issue. They acknowledged it, closed the ticket and said I’m added to their system and I’ll be notified when it’s fixed or if they need more

information.

I posted it at work to help folks who are having issues - a coworker called today, spent 2h15m with support on the call - support said nobody has had ESPP issues, and the ticket was opened again.

I hope someone at intuit is paying attention because if not I’ll do what someone suggested also - file my wrong taxes with audit protection so that Intuit has to pay the bill when it’s wrong...

[ryan-p-abraham]

So I just got an updated version of the SW Thursday and another Update today Saturday and figured I would try it out again in hopes that something was fixed. 

I cleared out all of my ESPP and all of my RSU and started from scratch again as the updates did auto fix what was already entered

I entered each one by itself making sure to  complete the full process all the way through and get back to the Federal Tax general compensation screen  and going back through with a new update each time.

With the updates , I did not have any issues with entering any of the sales  and they all got populated correctly on form 8949. The forms in this area finally look correct and I did not have to jump back and forth to the form and standard view.

Hopefully with today's update others now start seeing success after this terrible debacle .

Hey Turbo Tax how about a little quality control and testing before you release your product .....

This is the only feature I buy your Premier product for and the main upgrade from the deluxe...  and this was the  worst experience ever ...

For a main feature like this you might want to actually do some testing .... 

[BryanL1]

I updated my Windows desktop version today and tried again but the calculations are still not working for ESPP sales. RSU sales seem to work just fine. I tried both importing my sales and manually entering them. For ESPP, in both cases even with a single sale, the cost basis adjustment to account for ordinary income shows up only in the "Emp Stock Wks" for the sale but does not get carried over to the "Capital g/l adj" sheet or Form 8949.

I guess the wait for a fix continues. It's not like I paid money for the software or wanted to file my taxes...

[teksplorer]

Interesting, I see it matching after the latest Windows update.  It shows up in the Capital g/l adjustment sheet under part III "Specific Adjustments" and on form 8949 box (g).   This is with multiple ESPP sales. 

Wonder what is different about your file and mine.

[brazilian_sf]

I installed the update yesterday and entered the 3922 information for the ESPP sales. The system accepted each entry individually and the W2 amount was off by less than 25¢ which I take as a success.

Check for errors also came out with no issues.

[toecutter_MA]

I was encountering this issue with the 2nd ESPP sale and I'm happy to report that after installing the TT update this morning, I was able to successfully enter the 3922 information for the 2nd ESPP lot/sale   :^)

Come on it - the water's warm!

Thanks for all the great posts on this issue, everyone.

[ryan-p-abraham]

So it sounds like others are starting to see success as well after Saturdays update ...

Hopefully we don't see any more issues like this again ..

But I will certainly be thinking about switching next year many hours of my life wasted trying work around , on hold and talking with very non helpful customer service ....

Once would think that they should have some testing of a major feature like this ....

Many here seemed to be able to report the problem they should have been able as well 

[BryanL1]

So I was finally able to get it to work as well. What I found is that it still does not work if you select "I have all my info (like adjusted cost basis) and can enter it on my own" as you enter your ESPP details. Following that path gives me the same problem as before where the ordinary income never makes it onto Schedule D.

However when I tried selecting "Walk me through adding more info" and followed that path it worked correctly. So if you're still running into the issue try selecting that option as you walk through your ESPP sales and see if it works for you too.

[JoshB1]

Wow, glad I found this thread - I was literally going insane trying to get this to work - think I imported and adjusted ESPP transactions like 3-5 times 

From what I see, if you use the TurboTax tutorial (recommended), the cost basis is adjusted (though not 100% accurate) and the 8949 is created for that adjustment - but if you say "I have all my info and can enter it on my own" and then try to manually enter your - the 8949 is not generated and the cost basis is not adjusted - the original cost basis is used / the 8949 is not used on the Schedule D

I was even comparing to TurboTax 2019 with similar ESPP transactions and entered all the same information - results were correct 

I get how hard these kind of bugs are to fixed...but, clearly, this is widespread and they should probably pay attention to it

[cszabo2]

@JoshB1Well, how easy or hard a bug is to fix depends on the quality of the software. Most bugs in high quality (as in well designed and diligently maintained) software are easy to fix. This particular kind of bug that can be easily reproduced is usually particularly easy to fix. I am pretty sure that if Intuit had an easy to apply "satisfaction guaranteed" policy, where they would return our money when their software wastes more time than it saves, they would find a way to fix this bug immediately.

[JoshB1]

So, (and I get it), its an edge case - but its a pretty annoying bug for us and there's a literal financial impact for us - just annoying

[bbodb1]

For me, the takeaways from this issue (and in larger part, from this year of using TurboTax) are this:

• TurboTax lacks a meaningful customer support mechanism that provides (near) direct access to the software development staff.  
• TurboTax does not openly report on issues currently being addressed, or provide any sort of status on the resolution of these issues.  Or, if they do, this information is not published in a manner making it easy to locate.
• With respect to the ESPP issue, I still do not know (with certainty) the numbers I have entered are correct.  I do know I have entered the corresponding numbers for each of my transactions in a consistent manner.   
• My confidence in TurboTax is at an all time low.  I will be actively considering other alternatives next year.