If you cannot efile with a blank payer-ID, then you should just report your foreign pension as Miscellaneous Income on line 21 of the 1040. The IRS wants you to report it, it is not an issue where it is reported as long as it is included with the rest of your income.
Please follow the instructions below to report your pension income on line 21:
when entering as Miscellaneous Income, the taxes withheld at source (entered as foreign tax paid) did not get factored in. I have tried for 3 years to get this functionality to work...you'd think that Turbo Tax would figure out that a lot of filers receive foreign pensions and FIX this. I have only been able to paper file.
I tried to report my (German) pension based on Turbotax recommendations by, alternatively, a) filling out a 1099-R and b) reporting it in "Miscellaneous Income" under "Other Reportable Income" which was considered the better alternative recommended by Turbotax (since payer ID cannot be left blank - a shortcoming of Turbotax) . While the result for "Federal Taxes" was identical in both alternatives, the effect on my New State Taxes was very negative in Alternative b). How can this be? Consequently, I prefer the 1099-R option and would require a Default or Blank Payer ID to work on Turbotax.
I have spent weeks researching this to finally get to submit and find out I need this number. Get on board Turbo tax or refund me my purchase price as I now have to go to an account as I am done !!!!!!!