topic Issue with 2019 State Tax Return (CA) in After you file

Issue with 2019 State Tax Return (CA)

Anonymous — Tue, 24 Feb 2026 08:28:02 GMT

I have used TurboTax Deluxe for my 2019 Tax Return (filling jointly with my wife). We recently (November 2023) got a notification from the State of California Franchise Tax Board that our filled taxable income was erroneous and we now owe a substantial amount of additional taxes and penalty interest.

Looking at the filled Tax Return for that year, there is indeed was seems to be a glitch in the taxable income, which appears to have been caused by an amount entered in Item 14 (California adjustments – subtractions. Enter the amount from Schedule CA (540),Part I, line 23, column B).
This has drastically decreased the taxable income for the State tax return. The problem is I have no idea where this amount is coming from nor how it has been computed (automatically?), and it doesn't match anything from my or my wife's W2. So now I am tempted to think this was an issue with TurboTax, unless I am proven otherwise.

Can somebody from TB team help me with this matter? Thank you.

Re: Issue with 2019 State Tax Return (CA)

Anonymous_ — Wed, 06 Dec 2023 22:58:21 GMT

How do I contact TurboTax? (intuit.com)

Re: Issue with 2019 State Tax Return (CA)

Anonymous — Thu, 21 Dec 2023 22:12:52 GMT

TT support was not able to help with my case. The operator suggested I purchased a copy of TurboTax Desktop 2019 so I could open the .tax file to investigate further, since apparently the current TT app cannot read .tax files from 2019 (good job with backward compatibility btw), and even though I already paid for TurboTax online back when I filled my taxes.
I did purchased a desktop version anyway, but then was not able to install the application. Apparently TurboTax stopped supporting the 2019 version, which makes me wonder:
1) How am i supposed to read a 2019 .tax files if TT stopped supporting that version?

2) Why is TT still selling the 2019 version if customers are not able to activate it anymore? This is borderline robbery.

Re: Issue with 2019 State Tax Return (CA)

VolvoGirl — Thu, 21 Dec 2023 23:14:58 GMT

Do you have the pdf of your return from the Online version? With all the worksheets? Sorry you can't get 2019 Desktop program installed and even if you did you wouldn't be able to download the state program. They only support the last 3 years. Support should not have told you to install the 2019 program. Where were you able to buy 2019? Maybe you can get a refund?

If you have the .tax2019 file and need to see the pdf of it, you could try the TaxPrinter service to convert a .tax file to pdf at
https://www.taxprinter.com

They might be expensive and it is probably not safe to email tax returns back and forth. They are not related to Turbo Tax. I don't know if they can do State.