Both spouses had IRA RMD's. Wife RMD under withheld. no remedy for wife shows. Thomas is offered a remedy but Cynthia not offered remedy. How get to Cynthia RMD remedy.

[dmertz]

No, the bug is causing TurboTax to omit spouse's explanation even if it is entered.  I will be reporting this bug.  The only way to presently get spouse's explanation included in your filed tax return is to file by mail.  I've confirmed that this bug has been present for at least the last few years.

[dmertz · Accepted solution]

It's nearly impossible to get online TurboTax to prepare a Form 1099-R for Cynthia under these circumstances.  You should manually prepare Cynthia's Form 5329 and explanation requesting the waiver, then include these with your paper tax return filed by mail.

https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f5329.pdf

https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i5329.pdf

If you want to try getting TurboTax to prepare this Form 5329 and explanation for Cynthia, you'll need to temporarily change Cynthia's birthdate in TurboTax to make her age more than 70½ in 2018, prepare the form and explanation, change Cynthia's birthdate back to actual, then never subsequently click the Continue button on the Your 1099-R Entries page, otherwise TurboTax will delete Cynthia's Form 5329 and explanation.

This has been an issue with TurboTax for years that the developers have declined to address.

[dmertz]

Actually, the workaround I suggested doesn't seem to work because TurboTax doesn't seem to include the explanation statement in the filed tax return.  This seems to be a problem for any 5320-S form prepared by TurboTax to request the waiver, not just because the workaround might have been used.

[tomcin01]

Thanks dmertz Makes me think of I love Lucy

[dmertz]

I hear that less often these days, fewer people calling me Fred.

I've reported the bug.  It actually seems to be a bug in step-by-step mode.  It appears that spouses Form 5329 and explanation *will* be included in the filing if they are prepared in forms mode of the CD/download version of TurboTax.  You might consider contacting TurboTax customer service to see if they will push to you a copy of the CD/download version to be able to use forms mode as a workaround (if you are not already using the CD/download version).