Horribly confusing message attempting to efile an amended return

[mmcmahon14]

Glad it finally worked out. I gave up and mailed it in. Looking forward to my refund in six months ...

[phraxos]

Hi donovanw1,

I'm glad you were able to successfully file your amended 2022 federal and state returns on March 3, 2024. Encouraged by that wonderful news, I tried to do so again myself. Unfortunately, it still did not work. I used the 2022 Mac desktop edition of TurboTax with the latest updates.

During the filing process, I get to a screen titled "Select the Returns You're Ready to E-file". I select e-file for both federal and California amended returns. I confirm my direct debit information (since I had an amount due on both returns). Then I get to a screen titled "Transmit Your Returns" listing both federal and California. I click "Transmit Returns Now". I get a screen saying "Your Transmission Didn't Go Through. TurboTax was unable to send your return to the Intuit Electronic Filing Center, for the following reason: Transmission failed: The Intuit Electronic Filing Center is closed for the 2022 Personal Income Tax filing season. October 31, 2023 was the last day to file returns electronically."

Perhaps some authoritative person from Intuit can give a definitive answer as to whether it is still possible to e-file 2022 amended returns. If no, they should explain why it worked for you.  If yes, they should explain why I get the error message about it being too late.

[MarilynG1]

The bottom line is that some prior year amended returns can be efiled, and some can't.

There's really no rhyme or reason that we know of why this is so.

It could have something to do with timing (now is a bad time to try to Efile amended returns, since servers are so busy with current year), or it can possibly have something to do with items in the return, or it could possibly be random (who knows, it's the IRS).

The TurboTax FAQ about efiling prior year amended returns even says 'may be able to'.

Can I Efile My Amended Return?

@phraxos 

[phraxos]

Thanks MarilynG1 for your quick reply. However I do not consider that a good answer. Of course it is pretty easy to vaguely blame the IRS, but...

First, how do we know the return was rejected by the IRS? The error message says "TurboTax was unable to send your return to the Intuit Electronic Filing Center", which sounds more like a problem within Intuit's system. The IRS website says they are accepting electronically filed 2022 amended returns (see my previous posts). Also, in my experience if the IRS rejects a return it provides a meaningful error code which is passed back to the TurboTax customer.

Second, if (as you say) the return was in fact rejected by the IRS due to some unspecified characteristic of the return, why does the error message say it was rejected because it was filed after October 2023?

[donovanw1]

phraxos, I use turbo tax online and I amended my 2022 Fed and NY tax return.  My experience was totally different from yours, but my experience was consistent each time.   In your situation, it seems like you got to the end of the efile process and eventually got something that could be interpreted as an error message, like 'Transmission failed'.  I never got that far.  Each time when I would get to the screen that stated something like "let's get started to e-file your return", when I clicked continue, I would consistently get a popup box that stated something like "e-file is not available for amended returns and that I would have to print and mail my returns".  It didn't seem like an error message, but rather a statement of fact.   

[CatinaT1]

TurboTax does not support e-filing of prior year amended returns.

[phraxos]

Hi CatinaT1,

Your answer is clearly not correct. In previous postings you will see:

• A TurboTax expert and pointers to documentation saying TurboTax can at least sometimes efile prior year amended returns.
• Detailed messages shown by TurboTax to me indicating it could e-file amended returns.
• Most importantly: a TurboTax customer saying he did successfully use online TurboTax 2022 to e-file an amended 2022 return in 2024.

Perhaps you have something to contribute to this discussion, but if so provide a detailed and accurate statement consistent with the facts, and evidence  to back it up.

[fanfare]

"Most importantly: a TurboTax customer saying he did successfully use online TurboTax 2022 to e-file an amended 2022 return in 2024."

I've seen this posted several times. 

For that reason, I said what I said earlier.

Maybe TurboTax Online will work but TurboTax Desktop will not.

There are many examples of such inconsistencies between the two products.

There's probably two orders of magnitude more posts showing TurboTax Support giving wrong answers or being clueless.

The "TurboTax Experts" also often post wrong information.

@phraxos 

[bipulh]

I'm facing a similar situation as below.

- First it tells me 'You can't eFile your 2022 amended return as e-filing date has passed'

- Next page, for federal tax, it ask me to print, but for CA state tax, I get the following message

"Don't file return by mail that have already been transmitted electronically", then 'Do not print' is checked.

If I continue, it let me print the federal return but completely ignore CA state and eventually exit. So I'm at a loss on how to amend by CA state tax.