Turbotax is asking me to fill out line 18 of the Maximum Deferral of Self-Employment Tax Payments section. I don't know what to enter.

[kmytko]

Confirm, it works! Go to Deductions and Credits and re-do it. Say No to deferral option.

[jhop22]

Glad it worked for you, but I've checked "no" for deferrals and have re-checked the box several times. Nonetheless, TT keeps deferring payments. Frustrated.

[sayruh]

"When you click Start or Update beside this section you may see a message that you do not qualify to defer the self-employment tax.  If this is the case and you did enter a number during the error check process, then be aware that nothing is being calculated as part of your return as a deferral. "

This is not correct. I was already receiving a refund when the review decided I needed to enter a number on line 18. I entered the number, not realizing it was okay to enter 0, and it changed my refund to a larger amount. I go to this section and it tells me I do not qualify for the deferral since I am getting a refund, but my refund still includes this deferred amount. Now I cannot go back and change it to 0, as I do not want to defer any payments. What can I do?

[ShanaHill]

Just FYI I deleted the zeros and left them blank as suggested by another user and it worked. Was able to move past this error code. 

[JamesG1]

@sayruh

Try returning your tax return to a balance owed status by temporarily adding income to your self-employment activity.  This should allow you to once again access the self-employment tax deferral questions.

In TurboTax Online Self-Employed, I was able to remove self-employment tax deferral and pass Review.  Follow these steps. 

• Down the left side of the screen, click on Federal.
• Across the top of the screen, click on Deductions  & credits.
• Under Your tax breaks, scroll down to Self-employment tax deferral.
• Click on Edit/Add to the right of Self-employment tax deferral.
• At the screen Do you want more time to pay your self-employment tax?, click Yes.
• At the screen Let's start by getting your eligible income, I have left the dollar amount that was previously entered, others change this amount to $0.
• Click on Continue.
• At the screen Tell us how much you'd like to defer, delete the dollar amount.
• Click Continue.
• Click through Federal Review to make sure than the Review issue has been removed.
• At the screen Some of your self-employment taxes may be eligible, click Skip. 

The self-employment tax deferral is an optional benefit.  It is also a deferral rather than forgiveness, so those amounts will eventually need to be repaid. Half of the deferred amount is due on December 31, 2021, and the other half is due on December 31, 2022.

[Ava Nala]

@Bridgetown Thank you so much for your post.  I was stuck in an infinite hell loop for probably an hour, trying to figure out what to do, since I had a negative income.  There should definitely be an instruction note to leave it blank or it should just do it automatically if someone has no tax to defer.  I will report it today.  Once again, thank you for saving my sanity!

[RMilewicz]

I followed your instructions. But nothing I do will make that number go away. I click no, there is still an amount next to the self-employment tax deferral.

[lazygal]

Omg, thank you so much I was about to give up on this. I left line 18 - 22 blank and it works. OMG thank you so much I can relax now.

[mngl]

When I click "yes" that I want to defer payment it just tells me again that I'm not eligible.

[DawnC]

You won't be able to update it through the interview if you are not eligible.  In this case, assuming you do not want to (or can't) defer anything, you can enter a 0 on Line 18.   Then if you get another error for the 0 the shows up elsewhere, you can delete the zero and leave it blank.  That should allow you to e-file.    @mngl

[mngl]

CALL TURBO TAX or type in the Help (?) box "Talk to a specialist" and you can set up a phone call with them. I only had to wait 15 minutes for them to call me. Or you can call [phone number removed] for product support - in this case this is a glitch in the software not tax advice so you shouldn't need to pay to upgrade the version of TT you are using.  This was for the Turbo Tax Online version.

She verified my info and asked me to share my computer screen.  She then walked me through the following steps:

On the left side of the Turbo Tax screen, CLICK on "Tools."

In the pop-up window CLICK on "Delete a form."

From the list provided, I CLICK "Schedule SE."

For me this did the trick.  It reset my refund amount to the amount that had been displayed prior to typing a number in line 18 of the Schedule SE.  Another reply here suggested deleting your whole 1040, but deleting only the SE preserved everything else on  my taxes.  If you have other relevant info on the SE, that still seems less work to re-fill out than the whole 1040.

I'm so relieved and glad TT actually called me and helped.

"

[jomacgugan]

I have tried every single work-around for this problem that Turbotax offers. I know I have to enter a value on line 18 of Schedule SE for deferring taxes. The problem is, Turbotax online does not offer any kind of ACCESS to forms in order to adjust the value. I can only delete forms.

I've been going in circles for two months and cannot submit my taxes. This is beyond frustrating.

[KathrynG3]

When running the Federal Review, there should be access to the form by Check this Entry.

The forms in the regular section may not appear if you were once eligible(initially had a tax balance due) but are now not eligible (have a refund).

If you do not want to defer anything, and do not want to leave this cell blank, then, try this Workaround for Sch SE-T error for deferring Self-Employment Taxes. This should trigger the currently missing screens to repopulate so that the data can be entered.

Be sure to use a PC with Windows 10 and a Chrome incognito Browser. If you have not closed out completely and closed the browser window, the program will not fully update. You may already have done what is needed and just need to close and re-open the account.

We appreciate your patience with this frustration.

@jomacgugan

[winescl]

Thanks.  That was the only answer that worked.  Whew.  Nothing like wasting 3 hours of my time trying to get answers.  Turbo Tax is NOT user-friendly for getting questions answered.  Again, thanks so much!

[jomacgugan]

Thank you for responding, Kathryn. My program does not offer access to forms in the 'Check Entry' screen, for some reason. I will try the other workarounds, and really hope they will work this time.