What? SE-T Max Deferral LINE 18 wants me to fill it in and I have no idea how or why!

Yes, this is regarding the fact that Covid law contains a option that allows a taxpayer to postpone paying se tax on income earned in the covid period of 3/27/20-12/31/20.

It asks you the amount of se tax that you wish to defer paying...You don't get out of it, it is just deferred.  You must enter an amount to be deferred.  If you do not wish to defer any, then enter $0.

If you are self-employed or a small business owner and took sick time or family leave related to COVID-19, you may be eligible for a tax credit. Self-employed taxpayers may also be able to defer a portion of their SE taxes. Explore our Self-Employment Center for critical tax information, free calculators, and other valuable resources.

For additional information refer to the following link:

SE Tax Deferral

Sorry but this is NOT the SOLUTION!
This does NOT explain why I am filling out LINE 18 or HOW to fill out Line 18. Sorry but I'm very frustrated. I know everyone is trying to help but...
The problem is we are being forced to fill out Line 18 when we DECLINED to DEFER taxes at the beginning of the questionaire!
This is a BUG that needs to be fixed on TT's end and it's not being fixed!
I am in a hurry to file to get my Direct Deposit info changed for Covid Stimulus check coming soon, and this has already delayed my filing for 24 hours and wasted about 10  hours of my time.
The question is not really "what to put on line 18?" but rather WHY are we being asked to fill out line 18 ourselves instead of TT not sending us to a form we don't need nor want to fill out because we have already filled out the answer "I DO NOT WISH TO DEFER ANYTHING!"
This is a major bug and the fact that so many are here with this problem 2 weeks after it's been reported speaks very poorly of TT's service!

This error happens when details are entered and then circumstances change and you change from owing money to getting a refund. This would have made you ineligible but could create an error that is best solved by returning to the original entry. 

Go back to the interview section to un-trigger any deferral that you can no longer take and probably later declined. You will need to initially accept it before declining.

To do this in TurboTax, follow these steps:

Enter a temporary amount as income in the self-employment section that will result in you not having a refund.

1. From the left menu, select Federal.
2. From the Income & Expenses, scroll to Self-employment income & expenses and Edit/Add.
3. At Your 2020 work summary, select Edit.
4. Under INCOME, select Add income for this work.
5. Add Other self-employed income, includes 1099-K, cash, and checks and Continue.
6. At Type of income, enter Temp income to remove deferral and enter a large amount, such as $100,000 and Continue.

Decline to defer any self-employment tax.

1. From the left menu, click on Federal.
2. Click the second tab from the left, Deductions & Credits.
3. Scroll down to Tax Relief related to Covid-19 and Revisit.
4. Select Self-employment tax deferral and select Revisit.
5. Answer Yes at the next screen to get back to Let's start by getting your eligible income.
    

1. Enter 280/366ths of your income to reflect the income from March 27-December 31, 2021. 
   1. This amount should be the same as the correct amount on Line 18 of Sch SE.

1. Select Continue.
2. At Tell us how much you'd like to defer, 
   1. Enter 0.

Remove the temporary income.

1. From the left menu, select Federal.
2. From the Income & Expenses, scroll to Self-employment income & expenses and Edit/Add.
3. At Your 2020 work summary, select Edit.
4. Under INCOME, select the Trash can icon next to Temp income to remove deferral and Continue.

For more details, see TurboTax Expert @DawnC's answer here, about 2/3 down the page: Resolve Sch SE-T Max Deferral Line 18 must be entered.

Thank you but this did not work exactly the way you said it would so I will explain. It did work, it Seems, ultimately, but I STILL had to alter that form with line 18!.

I can only HOPE I did it right. I followed your instructions (good ones!) very carefully but in the end I had to do other things. Let me explain and you tell me if I did it right, if you will, before I submit my return:

Okay so after I put in 100k income I came up with $100,129 income. (I am on social security and our business had more expenses than profit this year).
So when I did the CHECK before filing then it STILL took me to the error re LINE 18:
As you can see even though I deleted the 100k as you instructed, the remnants of it still remained! This was very disturbing but I proceeded. I figured I had to change the line 18 to 75% of 29 (from line 3)  which was 22 so I did that.
I then got this notice:

Okay , now after finishing my taxes... and getting a refund of $33. I just realized that I think I FORGOT to change lines 19 and 21. I did not file my taxes yet though! Maybe I did change them but I don't think I did. I was going to go back to do it and I forgot to!

Okay I did download a copy of my Return after paying, but before filing it, and I see that my Return is 12 pages and consists of :

1040-SR which has 38 lines.
Then Schedule 1 1040 which has 22 lines.
Then Schedule C 1040 Profit or Loss From Business. 48 lines.
Then Form 8995 Qualified Business Income Deduction Simplified Computation 17 lines

Then Section 1.263(a)-1(f)
De Minimis Safe Harbor Election
The taxpayer elects to make the de minimis safe harbor election under the Regulation 1.263(a)-1(f)
Then Disclosure etc...

So there is no Line 18 stuff there.
Does that mean TT automatically deleted that form? Or is this version of my Taxes I downloaded after paying NOT the full monty?
Should I go back and check anything or is it safe to assume since the Return was accepted (by Turbo Tax not by the IRS yet; I did not submit yet) that everything is okay?

Thanks for your help.
I'm hoping this will be instructive to others in my situation.

@KathrynG3 and/or @DawnC, since you helped me get this far will you please reply to this asap so I can file (or not file, as the case may be) ? Thanks much. I am just wondering if I made a mistake by not answering re the other lines (I got distracted and forgot).

Nevermind. I went back and reviewed the part where the Deferral was and this time clicked No. (This is the problem if anyone can get to someone who actually cares about how TurboTax software is working, or rather not working.) Before as I said NO, it still took me to the error re Line 18 when you are in the REVIEW process, showing you that whole page filled with numbers as if you had said YES! I know, I did my entire taxes twice because of this!)

But this time after I went through the process as given above by @KathrynG3 , since I had been awarded a REFUND status, this time the Deferral page said "you are not eligible because you have a refund", so I filed, regardless of the fact that the Line 18 page still had bad info on it I think.

Since I am not eligible according to the software, then I assume it should not be a problem in any case!

All I can do now is HOPE that the IRS doesn't see this as a problem and reject it nor let it go then an auditor audits it after being flagged by this problem.

I am super disappointed in TurboTax. It took me over 18 hours all told to do my taxes which I usually do in about 4 or 6  hours here. All because Turbo Tax has this bug this year re Line 18 for Self Employed Taxes that people have been reporting since Jan 30 and it still has not been fixed! (I encountered the problem on Feb 16th!)

Anyway thanks to @KathrynG3 for helping me, but I am not marking it as a Solution because really the solution is not to have to deal with this TT error in the first place, and I am not 100% convinced that the solution is the best solution. If I get my REFUND I will come back here and add this as the Solution.

Yes. Same happened to me and I still don't know how to fix it.

I followed this and the 100000 income remained on the actual documents but not within the info tabs. It made it much worse. I'm considering starting over but what is the point if there is no solution to fix bypassing the deferral? 

Everyone i found a solution that i hope helps anyone out. For this problem instead of entering 0 leave the space blank! I was trying to figure this out for hours and i finally tried it that way! Hope it helps!

I followed @KathrynG3 instructions and it still won't let me get around the line 18. I've tried starting over and leaving it blank and still nothing. I'm very frustrated as it has been over a week and about 14 total hours trying to get this filed. Someone please help or fix this bug.

One more thing that can be done is to close out completely and close the browser, as well.

Re-open in Chrome on a PC. In your case, try an incognito Chrome browser and/or delete your cache & cookies for at least 7 days under the Basic tab. (Ctrl + Shift + Del) before opening your return, again to get your return to update. 

Try these steps once you have returned to the program:

1. Delete the Sch SE-T--by following these steps:
   1. From the left menu, select Tax Tools.
   2. Select Tools.
   3. Scroll to Delete a Form.
   4. Scroll to Sch SE-T and select Delete.
2. Return to the self-employment income & expenses interview in the Income & Expenses section and select Edit/Add.
   1. Select Edit for your business.
   2. Scroll down to Done so that the Sch SE is recalculated. 
   3. Finish any other questions in the self-employment interview and click Continue.
3. Run the Review at this point because the system should be updated and the error should be cleared.

If there are still issues, g​​​​o through the temporary income protocol from the steps listed earlier in this thread:

1. ​​​​​​​Enter a temporary amount as income in the self-employment section that will result in you not having a refund.
2. Decline to defer any self-employment tax.
3. Remove the temporary income.
4. Review the return again.

Kudos to you for your perseverance!

@cass_7

That worked. Thank you @KathrynG3 

Hi so can you tell me what do I need to put I. Box 18 under the Sch SE-S

IT WORKED !!!!

Just wanted people to know that I followed the advice of creating a $100k income, going through the form for that, then deleting it, as @KathrynG3 said.
That did work.
I received my refund a few days ago.

However, the fact I had to spend about 10 or more hours on here trying to figure out which of the several workarounds to use, then having to worry about whether it was right or not, is UNACCEPTABLE. Especially since this problem was reported at the end of January and as far as I know they still have not fixed the bug in their online software!

Also who knows if it really worked (I'm not guaranteeing it by any means!) or if some dead head sleepy IRS person just looked at my return and let it go based on how little money I made last year...

I just can't say for sure.
So I will not say "do it the way I did it because it worked".

Instead I will say USE ANOTHER SERVICE , as I will be doing from now on, because it is unacceptable to PAY over $100 for a service that doesn't work the way it's supposed to and have to spend YOUR TIME AND ENERGY figuring out how to "mickey mouse" or "workaround" the problem and then worry over whether or not it will be accepted and "passed" or not!

The only way I'll come back to TT is if they find this thread and offer me a free return next year. (I know they won't but they really should. ) Even if it were FREE, it's not worth the pain and suffering of having the software not work right.

Guys try this, it worked for me!

DELETE ALL ENTRIES IN THE BOX AND THEN TAB A COUPLE TIMES AND THEN HIT OK. 

AFTER DOING ALL THE $100,000 TRICKS THIS IS WHAT ULTIMATELY WORKED FOR ME

put your regular self employed income back in. once you get to the checkpoint where it flags you (line 18 or 22) then remove the amount from the box so its blank. (if there is any amount in the top box remove it as well) make sure both boxes are blank, hit tab a couple times. and then hit ok. this is what worked for me after I tried everything else. hope it helps

put your regular self employed income back in. once you get to the checkpoint where it flags you (line 18 or 22) then remove the amount from the box so its blank. (if there is any amount in the top box remove it as well) make sure both boxes are blank, hit tab a couple times. and then hit ok. this is what worked for me after I tried everything else. hope it helps

put your regular self employed income back in. once you get to the checkpoint where it flags you (line 18 or 22) then remove the amount from the box so its blank. (if there is any amount in the top box remove it as well) make sure both boxes are blank, hit tab a couple times. and then hit ok. this is what worked for me after I tried everything else. hope it helps

put your regular self employed income back in. once you get to the checkpoint where it flags you (line 18 or 22) then remove the amount from the box so its blank. (if there is any amount in the top box remove it as well) make sure both boxes are blank, hit tab a couple times. and then hit ok. this is what worked for me after I tried everything else. Sometimes you have to glitch a glitch to fix it. 🙂  hope it helps

Hello, @gloriah5200 

This is so confusing so what do I put if I have $22,339 in box 4C?

Thank you,

Teresa M.

It depends.  If you want to defer 50% of your self employment tax (determined based on the net profit for the period defined below) and if your income and expenses were steady throughout the year you should enter approximately 77.5% as eligible for the special deferral.

• Once this is entered, TurboTax will calculate the amount you are allowed to defer.

Excerpt from the 'Learn More' link in this section.  

The amount of the self-employment tax that is eligible for deferral depends on your net income from 3/21/2020 to 12/31/2020.

If you made roughly the same amount each month, calculating your eligible income is easy. Just grab a calculator and multiply your net self-employment income by 0.775.

If your income was not consistent from moth to month, you'll need to do some extra math to find your eligible income. You can still use the amount we gave you for your net self employment income, but you'll need to subtract the net income your earned between 1/1/2020 and 3/20/2020. Remember, your net income is what you earned minus any expenses.

Self-employed individuals may defer the payment of 50 percent of the Social Security tax imposed under section 1401(a) of the Internal Revenue Code on net earnings from self-employment income for the period beginning on March 27, 2020 and ending December 31, 2020. (Section 2302 of the CARES Act calls this period the "payroll tax deferral period.")

Self-employed individuals determine their net income from self-employment and deductions based on their method of accounting. Most self-employed individuals use the cash method of accounting and will therefore include all income actually or constructively received during the period and all deductions actually paid during the period when determining their net income from self-employment.

The deferred deposits social security tax must be deposited by the following dates (referred to as the "applicable dates") to be treated as timely (and avoid a failure to deposit penalty):

• On December 31, 2021, 50 percent of the eligible deferred amount; and
• On December 31, 2022, the remaining amount.

See the IRS Deferred SE Tax FAQs for more information. 

I'm exactly where you are. They ask me if I want to talk to a live person. I say yes. She gets on and has no idea what to do. Tells me she's not a tax professional. 

"I appreciate you, but why are you on this call with me then?"

Very frustrating

Thank You Kathryn, that helped. Good step by step instructions. 😁