Maine return rejected and I don't understand the error

[dekor]

I deferred filing and finally submitted taxes electronically on October 10. Federal was accepted almost immediately. For the Maine state taxes, I received a notice:

The Maine e-file agency will be undergoing system maintenance.
At this time, you should expect a delayed acknowledgment for the following form types:
1040ME and 1041ME will be delayed during the period of September 15, 2023 through October 9, 2023.
If a filing is submitted during this period, it will be held in an 'in agency' e-file status until October 10, 2023, at which time the Maine agency will acknowledge the return.
Please be advised that returns submitted electronically during this timeframe will be credited with the correct submission date.

It was already October 10 when I submitted, and the message above was sent to me on October 10, so I wasn't sure what to make of this. I just waited.

Last night at almost midnight I received an update that my state return was rejected. Specifically:

Payment can only be deferred until due date. For returns submitted after due date payment date must equal current date. Please review your dates and make the correction.

What does this mean? I opened TurboTax and it did not offer further explanation of the error message or anything I could fix. It just said I could resubmit. I had submitted electronically so I'm not sure how to set payment dates. And yesterday was October 16 — the deadline — so is my return now going to be late?

[tagteam]

How do I contact TurboTax? (intuit.com)

[dekor]

Update: after talking with a TurboTax support person, it appears this is probably what happened:

• Maine wasn't actually done with their system issues on October 10 when I filed. Probably needed a few more days. So, they didn't actually process my return until yesterday (or so).
• To pay your balance electronically to the state, you have to submit a date you want the money withdrawn from your bank account. This date should (???) match the "Today's Date" entry on the state tax forms.
• Because of their system updates, they ended up adjusting my submitted date (or fudging some other dates somehow) which meant the withdrawal date was now out of sync with "Today's Date."
• Voila! They rejected the whole thing.

We can't be sure that is what happened, but it sounds bureaucratically plausible.

There is nothing to correct but the dates, so I have submitted the taxes electronically again with new dates and we'll see what happens.