I have followed all the recommended steps. I have gone back into "IRA Contributions" then "Roth IRA" then "Excess contributions in a previous year: $0". But then when I save and exit, the page still shows "2018 contributions: $1200". And then it's making me pay the 6% penalty for my 2018 contributions even though I didn't even have to pay them in 2018. I think this is likely a code bug pulling the $1200 from the wrong field from my 2018 return. Because even my 2018 return itself shows $0 on the "IRA Contributions Worksheet" (Because like I said, I withdrew the $1200 before the deadline).
Where do you see it? On a 5329 - what line?
Enter 2019 Roth IRA contribution of zero and walk through the interview until it asks of a 2018 excess - say yes, then it should display any carry forward excess that was not removed in 2018. Enter 0 (zero) and the 5329 should go away.
I had no 5329 in 2018, becuase like I said, I removed the excess before filing my taxes. (I did handle the associated NIA separately, but that's a different discussion).
But when TurboTax is creating my 2019 return, it's creating a 5329 with $1200 excess on lines 18, 22, and 24.
I already entered $0 for 2018 excess just like you said, but it's still creating a 5329 for my 2019 taxes and showing $1200 lines 18, 22, and 24, as I said above.
That should remove it. If a joint return be sure you are doing that for the correct spouse. A 5329-T is for the first listed spouse and a 5329-S is the second listed spouse.
Print all forms and worksheets and look at the "IRA Info Worksheet" line 10 - is it there? That will also tell you with spouse that it is for.
If so, you can delete that form but it will also delete any other IRA carry over data so see what else is on it first.
Okay I figured out the problem.
So actually, what I tried over and over (and what you told me) is correct, and works. Unfortunately, there seems to be a bug in the display where it LOOKS like it doesn't work.
When I enter $0 and save it, in the resulting page, it just pops back to $1200. So it appears that it did NOT save my $0 input. Which led to my trying over and over, and everything I do being seemingly futile.
However, if I just ignore the $1200 displayed and proceed all the way to the "File my tax return" section again, when I examine the PDF... lo and behold... the $1200 was in fact removed and the 5329 is no longer part of the documents to be filed.
That is a horrible, frustrating, time-wasting user experience. And I only got lucky and progressed past this frustration by hypothesizing that the bug might be only in the display, but no bug in the actual filed/created documents. Someone who trusted the software more might just get stuck in an endless loop of try to save $0 -> unsuccessful, try to save $0 -> unsuccessful...
Anyway, thanks for your time!