How can I tell TurboTax to stop installing a State I no longer need?

[Swegnson]

Some years ago I did my daughter's taxes when she lived in California (I am in NY). She does her own now and I no longer need any state other than NY. How can I tell TT to stop installing CA? Every time I update TT California is installed and/or updated. 

[DaraLO]

You will need to delete the state this year so that it won't carry over anymore.  Refer to the following TurboTax FAQ for instructions:  How do I delete my state return in TurboTax Online ...

[Swegnson]

Strangely enough, these instructions do not seem to work in my case, if in fact I am following them. I am using TurboTax Premier 2020. In the top left corner of my screen I hit File, then Remove State Return. However on the next screen there is no State listed to remove.  In a way, not surprising, because I have not yet installed any. But as I said in my original post, every time I update TurboTax there is a reference to California, even though I have not used the CA State Return in several years.

[MaryK4]

When you gt to the Review/File, do you have the state return?

@Swegnson

[Swegnson]

When I finish entering for the Federal return and go to the State Taxes section it shows my state and then below that "Other Installed States". Here it shows California and Connecticut, neither of which I require any more. 

[MayaD]

In the income section under Job(W-2) do you see you daughter's empty W-2 with CA in box 15?

If you never deleted that W-2 that could be the reason why you are getting that message.

[Swegnson]

No, there are no empty W2 forms hanging about. 

[Doug S]

I could show a similar screen print with states associated with returns I did many years ago.  I'm no longer doing returns that involve the various states, but I still see "updates" for these states many years later even though I did not "purchase" the states for this year.  I'm not sure why TT can not see that this is an aggravating visual issue for users.

[KathrynG3]

Possibly, this feature could be overridden from the default. Try selecting a non-automatic option for the update checks where you would be selecting the updates. The prior state details are likely being carried over year to year "just in case."

If you are manually selecting what is updated, you may be able to opt out of the prior state updates going forward.

@Doug S

[SteamTrain · Accepted solution]

@Doug S 

@Swegnson 

When using the Desktop software, none of the Superusers (Champs), who have been using TTX for many years.......none of them have ever found a simple way to stop the download and updates of states you used "once-upon-a-time " in the desktop software.  

They may continue to download and update every year until you install your software on a new computer that has never been used with TurboTax.  You won't be charged for them if you don't actually use them, but it is still an annoying waste of disk space and download/update time

[lzupko]

Delete the folder the forms are in.  Go to the folder that contains all the forms C:\Program Files (x86)\TurboTax\Premier 2020\Forms.  You should see a folder for the state you want to delete.  In my case it was Pennsylvania and the folder was named pai_20.  Just get rid of the whole folder for the state(s) you no longer want.

[cardopa1]

I deleted the state folder under forms and it still installs the state

[SForrestLO]

@cardopa1

Please see this Turbo Tax FAQ on how to delete your state return. Delete a state

[cardopa1]

Hi - I did see the answer how to delete a state.  The state that keeps installing, NY, is not there to delete but somehow it knows to keep installing updates.  I had also deleted the NY file in the Forms folder.  Nothing works.

[ChondelLO]

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