I think I made a mistake regarding the date when I first began receiving retirement payments from my federal thrift savings and annuity and overpaid as a result.

[keitham1958]

I think I gave an incorrect answer to Turbo Tax when it asked whether I'd received retirement payments from federal thrift savings and annuity before a certain date and might have overpaid taxes as a result.  I timed my retirement to avoid any early withdrawal  penalties or higher rate of taxation, and I would like to ascertain whether I inadvertently incurred such penalties by providing incorrect information to Turbo Tax.

[dmertz · Accepted solution]

If you paid an early distribution penalty, it will have appeared on Form 1040 line 59.  (Tax year 2014, 2015, or 2016, assume.  The line number is different on earlier Forms 1040.)

If you received the distribution after age 59½, the Form 1099-R would have code 7 in box 7 which TurboTax would automatically treat as not subject to penalty.

Unless you had after-tax money in your TSP account, the year that you began receiving distributions is irrelevant to determining the taxable amount.  With no after-tax basis, the entire distribution is taxable.  It's unlikely that a Form 1099-R for a distribution from the TSP would have an incorrect taxable amount shown in box 2, so you shouldn't even have gotten to the question where TurboTax asks for the date when you first began receiving distribution.  The correct answer to the preceding question likely should have been that box 2a had the correct taxable amount.