TurboTax 2020 rounded each trade from my 1099-B upload. The cost basis/proceeds do not match my 1099-B by a difference of $18. Is this normal?

[jimbakeron]

I agree that this is NOT a positive change.  I like to check the totals to see everything is ok in uploads and this change does not allow that as the 1099B and form 8949 totals will NOT match what Turbo Tax is doing.  If they can at least allow an option not to round the individual transactions then we could choose.

  Hope they fix this soon..

[gloriah5200]

You're correct, the issue with regard to the negative proceed on 1099-B isn't due to a mistake.  It's a rounding issue.  If the adjustment is $0.49 or less, then it is automatically rounded to zero.  This type of rounding is allowed by the IRS.  Unfortunately, zero is not a valid value for this field -- thus the error message.

To resolve the issue, you can still import the transactions but you'll need do delete anything that is .49 or less.  This will clear the error message.  

To do this, you will need to revisit the input section for the Form 1099-B transactions.  Use the following steps:

• On the top row of the TurboTax online screen, click on Search (or for CD/downloaded TurboTax locate the search box in the upper right corner)
• This opens a box where you can type in “1099-B” and click the magnifying glass (or for CD/downloaded TurboTax, click Find)
• The search results will give you an option to “Jump to 1099-B”
• Click on the blue “Jump to 1099-B” link
• Click Edit beside the institution name
• Click Edit beside each transaction that contains a wash sale adjustment amount of $0.49 or less
• Delete the wash sale adjustment amount and click Done

 Here is more information about IRS guidelines and rounding: https://www.irs.gov/publications/p17/ch01.html  

Computations

The following information may be useful in making the return easier to complete.

Rounding off dollars.

You can round off cents to whole dollars on your return and schedules. If you do round to whole dollars, you must round all amounts. To round, drop amounts under 50 cents and increase amounts from 50 to 99 cents to the next dollar. For example, $1.39 becomes $1 and $2.50 becomes $3.

If you have to add two or more amounts to figure the amount to enter on a line, include cents when adding the amounts and round off only the total.

Here is a TurboTax article that explains Form 1099-B Proceeds from Broker transactions

How Form 1099-B is used

The 1099-B helps you deal with capital gains taxes. Usually, when you sell something for more than it cost you to acquire it, the profit is a capital gain, and it may be taxable. On the other hand, if you sell something for less than you paid for it, then you may have a capital loss, which you might be able to use to reduce your taxable capital gains or other income.

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[jimbakeron1]

Not sure you understand the issue.  Regardless of whether the IRS says it is ok to do this, it is messing up the users.  As someone pointed out, the program is supposed to make doing the taxes easier, not harder.  This was a change for 2020 and it is not a good one.

  Turbo Tax no longer matches the 1099-b or 8949 from my broker.  After import the totals are different.  They should match to allow checking the totals.

  As I have said, I do not care if it is allowed by the IRS, Turbotax should do it the way it used to and make our lives easier, not harder.  

[Ordiemn]

I and many others bought Turbo Tax to make doing taxes easier not Harder!

Your customers think your rounding of each transitions is causing a problem not matching 1099B ammounts reported to the IRS

Is the program incapable of adding and subtracting than rounding the final amount so that the results match all us brokerage firm reporting on 1099B sales?

[mjrengaw]

They fully understand the issue but continue to just regurgitate the same post whenever they see a user post raising this issue. It’s getting old for sure.

[PlotinusRedux]

This is completely unacceptable.

In my case, TT shows a total gain of over $200 less than my 1099-B.  Maybe the IRS will accept that, maybe it won't, I don't know--but it was purely a matter of luck that TT ended up $200 less than my 1099-B rather than $200 more, which even if the IRS allowed it, TT shouldn't force rounding that requires  people to pay *more*.

[mjrengaw]

The problem is that TT is rounding both the basis and the proceeds prior to doing the subtraction. They should be rounding the result not the two numbers prior to the subtraction. This is completely new this year and was never done this way in all the prior years that I used TT...which goes back many years. It really needs to be fixed.

[nbedh]

Turbotax seems to import the "Gross Proceeds" correctly from the 1099B broker statements.  The individual transactions seem to have the proceeds/cost information, andTurbotax displays it correctly when you select the "edit" button and verify the information.

However, the consolidated entries in Schedule D (1a, 1b, 8a) have drifted apart due to the rounding.  The net of it is that my Gross Proceeds from all sales are showing up $90 short and the Net Gains exceed what they should be by $210.

In prior years, I was able to reconcile the Turbotax Schedule D with the 1099B statements down to the penny.  Clearly, there is a problem this year. 

Will Turbotax stand behind its product if the return gets flagged by the IRS for the discrepency???? 

[vpeppen]

That is for sure not true in my case.

I have hundreds of option trades with Vanguard. Vanguard charge you $1 commission for each written or bought-back contract and, only for each written contract, a small fee which is in all my cases lower than 50 cents.

That means that the amounts of all my buy-backs are always in whole dollars and the amounts for a written option contract are always less than 50 cents smaller than a whole dollar amount. The result is that all my profits (and losses) are always less than 50 cents below the whole dollar amount (Just by the fee amount).

TurboTax round all these profits (and losses) up, basically it ignores my paid fee. In my case, that made my gains $ 76 higher than they really were. The averaging out with more transactions works only if the fees would have a uniform distribution from 0.1 to 0.99 cents. In my case, more trades would only result in a larger rounding error.

[PlotinusRedux]

Just to prevent anyone else wasting their time trying this--the rounding was causing my total gains to show around $200 less than reported on my 1099-B imported directly from the TDA website.

So I decided to see what would happen if instead I manually exported from TDA to a .txf file then imported that file.

For some reason that came up with a new *third* number for the total gains that disagreed with both the 1099-B and with TT's previous total--this time around $300 less than my 1099-B.  Worse, it didn't know which transactions were Box A, Box B, etc., so wanted me to manually enter that for every single trade.

So--yeah, don't waste your time trying that.

[DJG]

Rounding the cost basis and the proceeds independently for each tax lot, before subtracting one from the other?  Ridiculous.  Now nothing matches! This was an asinine change, TurboTax!  How do you not at least have a user option to override this stupidity?   

[stevethemacguy]

Everyone should stop replying here and instead post on the thread that has more upvotes and replies: HERE Make sure to "like" that post. If enough people like the post, hopefully TT will actually do something.

[mjrengaw]

No, reply and upvote on EVERY thread that is about this issue. And if you haven't already, start your own thread. The more posts, threads, upvotes, and basic noise about this issue the better! And make sure to

take advantage of their Maximum Refund Guarantee -

Maximum Refund Guarantee or Your Money Back

If you get a larger refund or smaller tax due from another tax preparation method, we'll refund the applicable TurboTax federal and/or state purchase price paid.

The “other tax preparation method” will be to do the math correctly on form 8949....

The squeaky wheel gets the grease. 

[jms206]

I write in support of the concern expressed by sethaadams over 4 weeks ago - and not yet addressed.

The summary amount on my Schwab 1099-B for Box A is about $10 different than that reported in TurboTax on its 1099-B Summary Table for my Schwab account. I concur with Mr. Adams's conclusion that TT2020 is rounding individual transactions.

This pre-mature rounding at the transaction level is an error and should be corrected.

My concern over the error is not in the amount of gain or tax - it's a minor difference. But this minor difference could trigger an audit flag. *That* is my concern.

[DaveF1006]

It depends. The rounding is an IRS requirement that any amounts over .51 are rounded up and .50 and below are rounded down. The rounding issues will not cause  any undo problems with the IRS.