California's Schedule S (Other State Tax Credit) Error (For 2020 Taxes)

[KimmyD]

well. spent another hour on the phone the other day and the specialist confirmed that my many many calls resulted in a bug report being placed. She DID link my account and case to this bug report so I should know when its fixed. I'm lucky in that the recommendation she made does work for me. She recommended that I delete california tax return and file my fed and NY state taxes. Once those clear, I will reenter CA and wait for it to be fixed. this works for me since my CA filing is pretty much paperwork for me AND if this doesn't work I'm falling back and ordered a paper CA version. I'll file that way if I have to. I DO recommend that you all insist on a call back from a specialist and you take up their time on the phone so that they see its just not me spending hours trying to push them. 

[krissw5]

Thank you Kimmy for spending the time.  I totally agree that we all should do the same to ensure this gets fixed.  I like that idea the rep gave you and that was my backup plan - to just print the CA form and mail in assuming I can electronically file Fed and IL.

[Vijay11]

I have the same problem--something to do with Turbo Tax coding, in the 2020 version as I have had no problems in the prior years .

I was able to go to Schedule S smart work sheet from my 2020 CA Tax return and followed these steps

DoubleTaxed Income Smart Worksheet fill column "b" with the amount from the other state--  leave other columns as "0" zero

In the Table Schedule: other Tax Credit, under A fill Tax paid to other State and B fill gross income taxable by other state

This seems to give the correct amount of Tax credit and cleat the final error check , allowing e filing. Not sure if this is an " acceptable" fix--BV 

[KimmyD]

I'm using the online version and I can't get to the actual underlying forms to make the manual adjustments. I do know that the specialist was trying to adjust my form 'behind the scenes' but she didn't know what to do. This is a good idea if someone else calls in. Let me know if it works. 

[PaulR1]

I have the same problem. I can't e-file California for this reason, with the schedule S filled in. The turbotax support people have not been useful. They all want to stare at the message and make sense of it, which is impossible since it is just a bug. They told me this has been reported before and added my case.  But I have received no information about a solution coming. I am getting sick of these TurboTax bugs.  Last year I had a similar problem until they fixed a different bug. Does anyone know if any of the other software is good for more complicated returns with out of state rental properties? Do they import the TurboTax forms neatly?

[867-5309]

Same problem.  Almost 100% because they are failing to sanitize or convert a variable properly ("California of $" says that the amount is being cast to null/failure for the check, which then fails unless the other amount is also null).  That should not have slipped through with even a moderately competent code monkey doing peer review, if it did slip through it should have been caught in unit testing before the crappy code was merged into the master branch, and even if it did somehow get merged it should have been caught by an error handling routine looking for conversion failures.  That it's almost a month later and still not fixed is just the cherry on the sundae of competence. \rant

So thanks for wasting everyone's time with your pathetic software dev practices, Intuit.  I paid you $$$ to make my taxes easier, not waste my time and raise my blood pressure on a weekend.

[PaulR1]

After days on the phone, I found a workaround to this stupid bug that let me e-file and preserved the credit.

Go to forms on schedule California schedule S.  In the "double taxed income smart worksheet "column e, where you are supposed to enter the double taxed income only if is different, just enter the same number.  This overrides the number in column d and bypasses the bogus error check.  If you do this be warned you can't delete that column anymore without deleting the schedule S and starting over.  I didn't try that.  I just filed because it uses the same number.  I don't know if the CA tax people will get confused because the same number is entered there.

[humuhumu]

Just wanted to follow up, I also contacted support and had my case added...for all the good that seems like it's going to do.  I would not recommend filling out the forms incorrectly just to get around this bug as there's always the chance that the FTB will take issue with it.

[RNML]

If we are counting the number of people with this situation - count me in as well. I also need to fill out the tax form for Massachusetts (paid additional money for the Mass state tax software) and had a different error appear on their state form. I am seeing errors both on the California Schedule S form and the Massachusetts Form Schedule R/NR. Did anyone get any help from experts on whether this bug will get fixed? I will do the workaround suggested in this thread and I had to do something similarly on the Massachusetts form case as well.

[KimmyD]

I did notice that when you now look up Other State Tax Credit California Schedule S when you are in Turbotax there is not a statement that there is a problem and to send them your email so they can notify you when the issue is fixed. Seems we got their attention officially!

[humuhumu]

Though I didn't get any type of notification, going back to my taxes now and reviewing, there's no error and I was able to file.  Perhaps this is the case for everyone else experiencing the issue?

[StrangePenguin]

I got an email from TurboTax yesterday that claimed the issue was solved. I haven't had time to try again to file but it sounds like it is fixed.

[KimmyD]

its fixed. I cleared the final check. 

[feiwenw66563]

Hi,

I am experiencing the same issue in version 2021. I am struggling for days. Please advise how I can make this work. 

[feiwenw66563]

Hi,

I am experiencing same issue in Turbox Tax 2021 version. The code doesn't seem to be fixed. Can you tell me steps which can make it work? Thanks