topic Re: Help with Section 179 error in Get your taxes done using TurboTax

Section 179 error

drbdrc — Sun, 19 Apr 2020 17:07:31 GMT

My state return was rejected by Massachusetts even though Turbotax said there were no errors! It said my Schedule C, Line 11 amount for depreciation and Section 179 deduction amount cannot be negative and it is $-163. The fix error on turbotax is of no help. It says the issue is caused by having multiple copies of Federal Schedule C on my Federal return with the same description for principle business or profession and to fix, edit my business description for one of my businesses so each Sched. C has a unique description. I only have one Schedule C. so I was not able to fix this. Does anyone know how to fix this?

Re: Help with Section 179 error

drbdrc — Sat, 18 Apr 2020 18:26:16 GMT

Can anyone help with this?

Re: Help with Section 179 error

bostonian — Thu, 14 Apr 2022 17:53:48 GMT

I have exactly the same problem (and it seems that similar problems were reported to TT last year as well.)

The offending entry on my Mass. Sched C, line 11 that TT inserted was -54 and the return was rejected by Mass DR because the value is negative. It should have put in a positive value (the paper Mass Sched C form has no provision for negative values in that field).

I was able to search the PDF of the saved tax returns for the offending value and it comes up In the Federal/State Adjustment Summary, where there seems to be some (small) $54 difference between what Fed and Mass. allows for business losses (I had about $3600 in losses).

TT advises to check for multiple businesses (not applicable here) and also advises to print out the failed return and mail it in. But I worry that that return will also be rejected. TT says nothing about that and I am trying to find out what are the consequences.

It occurs to me that perhaps I can delete $60 in expenses and avoid this TT error, but is that OK? Doing that might create discrepancies between Federal and state returns that might end up producing more headaches down the pike. It's incredibly annoying because of such a small glitch in TT that has not been corrected. You would think that TT would at least detect the error and not allow the returns to be filed.

Re: Help with Section 179 error

RobertB4444 — Tue, 19 Apr 2022 18:16:56 GMT

Adjusting the expenses seems the fastest way around this. Since negative numbers all turn into zero on the state end then deleting $54 seems like it would be easier than anything else.

Re: Help with Section 179 error

bostonian — Wed, 20 Apr 2022 16:18:10 GMT

I thought of that and tried it, but to no avail.

I also thought of eliminating my business loss altogether

but it resulted in a $200 tax increase and it occurred to me

that might have implications for including it in future years.

I did finally figure out how to talk to a TT tax advisor and he was

extremely helpful.

I ended up getting the PDF tax forms and filling them out manually

using Preview and using the positive rather than the negative number in

line 11. I printed it out and sent in the paper return. Took alot more

work.

Because I had paid TT for electronic state submission, I will be asking

them for a $25 refund, and also for a partial refund of TT, since the state return did not

work. They need to correct the error ASAP, because this problem could also

occur in the future tax years until it is corrected.

Re: Help with Section 179 error

RoJoGo — Tue, 26 Sep 2023 15:39:46 GMT

Fyi, I'm filing as of 9/25/2023 and this bug in TT has still not been resolved, and TT does not catch the issue during verification of the MA return. Too bad Intuit doesn't think this issue is prevalent enough to warrant being addressed. Second year in a row (at least) that I'll have to print out and submit the return via snail mail.