topic NY State 1099R - Box 14a, for electric filing, withholdings cannot be greater than or equal to gross distributions or state distributions. in Retirement tax questions

NY State 1099R - Box 14a, for electric filing, withholdings cannot be greater than or equal to gross distributions or state distributions.

phoffman99 — Wed, 18 Feb 2026 12:36:00 GMT

Re: NY State 1099R - Box 14a, for electric filing, withholdings cannot be greater than or equal t...

AnnetteB6 — Wed, 18 Feb 2026 13:34:54 GMT

If you are getting an error message with regard to needing an amount in Form 1099-R box 16 because there were state withholdings reported in box 14, enter the amount reported in box 1 of your Form 1099-R for the state distribution amount box 16.

Re: NY State 1099R - Box 14a, for electric filing, withholdings cannot be greater than or equal to gross distributions or state distributions.

SteamTrain — Wed, 18 Feb 2026 14:25:38 GMT

@phoffman99

Try to remember that for next year...or write a note in your tax folder.

NY is particularly picky about having box 16 filled in even if empty on your actual 1099-R.

Re: NY State 1099R - Box 14a, for electric filing, withholdings cannot be greater than or equal to gross distributions or state distributions.

phoffman99 — Wed, 18 Feb 2026 16:13:48 GMT

Thanks, I spoke to a turbo tax expert and she told me to do that and it worked. The Schwab form did not have that one filled in.

Re: NY State 1099R - Box 14a, for electric filing, withholdings cannot be greater than or equal t...

user17751661602 — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 21:45:12 GMT

Seems like there could be some kind of guidance on how to solve this problem. I have used TurboTax for many years while in NY state and never had a problem with a blank box 16 State Distrubution.

Re: NY State 1099R - Box 14a, for electric filing, withholdings cannot be greater than or equal t...

BillM223 — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 21:58:57 GMT

The process of e-filing has two parts:

1. TurboTax creating an XML file that is a data set of all the tax data for your return (one for federal and one for each state).

2. The feds and each state writing software to parse (read) those XML files. The reject messages often come from this step.

Note that TurboTax (and other tax software companies) do not send copies of the tax forms like in PDF, but just a specialized data format.

So, if the feds or the state (in this case) change their software in step #2, what may have worked in one year might be rejected in the next year. Even though there is testing each year between tax software vendors and the states, there is a limit to what can be tested. This sounds like one of those things where New York changed the import process to not accept 1099-Rs that are incomplete in a certain way.

@user17751661602

Re: NY State 1099R - Box 14a, for electric filing, withholdings cannot be greater than or equal t...

kooolerking — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 22:39:49 GMT

"Seems like there could be some kind of guidance on how to solve this problem. I have used TurboTax for many years while in NY state and never had a problem with a blank box 16 State Distribution. "

I agree 100% with the above comment. I've been entering 1099-R amounts from the same account and firm for the past several tax years, and they have never had anything in Box 14a. TT 2025 was the first time this issue was flagged during the final smart check, but the software just took me in a circular loop without telling me how to actually "fix" the "error".

The 2025 TT version for NY State has been particularly problematic with other software bugs that still have not been fixed (as of April 6, 2026) ... I'm using TT 2025 Premier for desktop PC ... paying roughly $100 for this software each year, you would think Intuit could offer a better product than this!

To add insult to injury, I had run the TT "Smart Check" several times as I was working on my return and it never flagged this error until the last steps just before transmitting the filing ... NOT GOOD!