topic 2020 North Carolina income tax return credit carryover and estimated payment in Deductions & credits

2020 North Carolina income tax return credit carryover and estimated payment

YWCHYC — Sun, 07 Mar 2021 19:15:43 GMT

When filing North Carolina 2020 individual income tax return using TurboTax, my 2019 income tax overpayment credit to 2020 return is carried over to both 2020 Form D-400 line 16 as prior year tax credit and to line 21a as 2020 estimated tax payment, therefore double counted. Is this double counting correct for me to get more tax refund on 2020 North Carolina tax return?

In addition to the 2019 income tax overpayment credit, I made North Carolina estimated income tax payment for tax year 2020 in September 2020, but I find nowhere to enter this payment amount. Could you please let me know where to insert my 2020 estimated North Carolina payment using TurboTax? Thanks.

Yiyun Chen

Re: 2020 North Carolina income tax return credit carryover and estimated payment

DMarkM1 — Sun, 07 Mar 2021 19:45:08 GMT

You can enter your estimated tax payments to NC in the federal interview under the "Deductions & Credits" tab.

Scroll down to "Estimates and other taxes paid"
"Show More"
"Start/revisit" Estimated Tax Payments"
"Start/revisit" State Estimated Taxes for 2020"

You are correct there should not be a double counting for the refund applied. The correct line is 21a on the NC D-400. Line 16 is other NC tax credits like a credit for taxes paid to another state.

In the NC interview revisit the credits section to verify. Line 16 could contain carry over credits from 2019, but would not be the refund applied.

Re: 2020 North Carolina income tax return credit carryover and estimated payment

YWCHYC — Wed, 10 Mar 2021 20:30:00 GMT

Thank you. Now I realized that the double counting was caused by my confusion of prior year tax credit and prior year tax overpayment, not knowing that the prior year overpayment is already carried from federal tax return entry to state tax return calculation, and entered prior year overpayment again as prior year tax credit when preparing state tax return. Now problem solved.