Wife left her job with MA state, decided to be paid out From retirement board. Received 1099-R, states “non taxable” in box 12. How should I enter this 1099-r?

[DavidD66]

Massachusetts fully exempts Social Security retirement benefits and income from public pension funds from taxation.  If your wife's retirement distribution was from a public pension, it's not taxable.  Enter the 1099-R exactly like it's printed, and for Box 12, leave it blank.

[sfdurfee]

Thanks David, This is what I did, but TurboTax calculated state tax on it. Then a series of questions following are asked to see how Massachusetts will treat the disbursement. It was an early distribution before 59 1/2, my wife was a social worker for the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families. I'm not sure I answered these following turbo tax questions correctly because turbo tax is calculating tax owed for MA even though the 1099-r states non taxable.

[sfdurfee]

Here is the question I'm not sure I'm answering correctly following the 1099-r data entry:

[BillM223]

As David noted, pensions from the the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and its political subdivisions are not taxed in Massachusetts.

So, if the pension you received is from the pension fund run by the state government (it sounds like it may be), you should check the top box "qualified government retirement distributions".

But please contact your pension plan administrator to confirm that they are a MA government pension - they will know.

[sfdurfee]

Thanks Bill. It was a MA government employee pension fund that she was paying into run by overseen by the MA State Retirement Board.  

It was the Examples part of the question that confused me and made it seem specific to the ones listed. 

Many Thanks!

[BillM223]

Thanks for your response. I will pass your comment along.