Yes, you do need to do something different.
Enter the total in
2016. While your lump sum may include benefit payments for more than one
year, you do not have to file an amended tax return for any prior year. You
might need to pay taxes on a small portion of your lump-sum payment. However, you might be able to avoid these taxes by
apportioning prior year benefits to those previous years’ income (still without
filing any amended returns).
See the screenshots
below.
Note: You will have
to do this for each year. I am just showing you an example of one year.
After you enter your lump-sum Social
Security payment information, TurboTax will automatically figure what if any
taxes you owe due to the lump-sum payment.
After you enter your
SSA-1099 information, answer Yes that you received a lump sum payment for prior year(s) and
follow the onscreen instructions. Your SSA-1099 lump-sum section breaks
down the payments into what amount was received for each preceding year. You
can only enter one year at a time; when finished, click Add Another Lump Sum if you need to enter benefits received
for a different tax year.
To enter your SSA-1099
form:
1. Open your tax return in TurboTax online.
(To do this, sign in to TurboTax, see your Tax
Timeline, and click ‘Take me to my return.’)
2. Using the Search feature in the upper right
corner of the screen, enter SSA-1099 and perform the search. Then click on Jump to SSA-1099, which is the first item in the search
results.
3. Select Yes, let's work on
Social Security benefits and
click Continue.
4. Check the first box, Form SSA-1099.
5. Enter the amounts for yourself and your
jointly-filing spouse, if they received an SSA-1099 also.
- SSA-1099s for children and other dependents
are not reported on your return. They should report it on their own return, but
only if they're required to file a return for some other reason (this is
uncommon).
6. Click Continue.
TurboTax will
automatically calculate what portion, if any, of your Social Security benefits
are taxable.
