Maryland tax return issue - Taxable income and refund/owed amounts not calculating

[Makers]

I completed my Federal and Maryland returns using the Easy Step process. TurboTax is telling me my total Maryland tax is zero though this is not correct. Upon inspection (of Form 502) I notice there are no "calculated" entries in the "Deduction Method" or "Tax Computation" sections on the form, nor any resultant calculations, ie, Taxable Net Income is not calculated nor tax due on that amount (currently shows zero.) To make matters worse, I am not able to override the blank entry for deduction method to force the subsequent calculations. HELP!!!

[JotikaT2]

It appears that while you entered your information into the federal section of the return, you may need to revisit some of the input sections to ensure you are able to enter all deductions and start your state tax return.

I recommend going back into the program and selecting the Personal tab.

Select Deductions & Credits.

Select Walk me through everything.

This will ensure you are able to see all of the possible tax deductions you may be entitled to and list the areas where this information can be entered.

Go through the deductions section and update or start a section where you may have information to input.  For example, you would enter mortgage interest deductions under Your Home.

Once you enter any applicable information, you will scroll down to the bottom of the page and select Done with Deductions.  You will see the following screen that tells you whether you have a better outcome with the standard deduction or the itemized deduction.

Continue through the screens until you pass the Federal review.  The next screen will look like this:

Select Continue here and proceed with the state interview sections.  Select Edit to the right of your state.  After you go through all the state screens, there will be another review.

Once you have proceeded through all of the steps above, you can go view your Forms, and the information will populate.

If you are still having issues with your state return after doing the above, select Online and Check for Updates to ensure your program is up to date.

[Makers]

I have followed the interview process through both the federal and state returns, requesting to walk through every topic and continuing once all income and deduction items have been addressed. Still the maryland return and related worksheets do not populate beyond calculating taxable income, ie, no deduction method is selected, deduction amount is entered, net taxable income is not calculated nor is my total MD state income tax due. My software is up to date, and in fact a second pair of returns(Federal and MD state) work fine.

The returns that worked fine are my own. The MD return that is not calculating is my daughter's. Although she is 21 and in college, I have not claimed her as a dependent. I have entered the fact that I can be will not claim her. This impacts her federal standard deduction of course. Could this have anything to do with the issue? There is one other aspect of her return that is not straightforward. She received a small excess distribution from her 529 account. Since it was due to her receiving a scholarship, it is not subject to a 10% penalty. Turbotax seems to assume that any excess distribution is subject to the penalty so I had to override the corresponding lines in the penalty column of Part VIII of the federal student information worksheet. These overrides seem to be necessary and are flagged as errors during the federal review. The state review, even though no tax is calculated, finds no errors. 

[JotikaT2]

I'm so sorry about the issues you are facing!  It is odd since you are preparing both returns within the same download.

It would be helpful to have a TurboTax ".tax2019" file that is experiencing this issue. You can send us a “diagnostic” file that has your “numbers” but not your personal information. If you would like to do this, here are the instructions:

On your menu bar at the very top, click Online and then Send Tax File to Agent. 

When you click to send, you will get a pop-up with a token number. 

Reply with the token number and I’ll be able to open a TurboTax file with your numbers but not your personal information. 

That may help diagnose the issue.

[Makers]

Thanks for following up and your offer to help troubleshoot this issue. Meantime I was able to solve the issue myself ,though I think it's worth an update to your Maryland software. To solve the problem I started from scratch and watched my Maryland return carefully as I input data into my Federal return. What happened was as soon as deductions dropped my MD gross taxable income below the minimum level required for filing a MD return ($12,200 for single filers), Turbo tax deleted all subsequent entires on the MD form, ie, deduction method, standard deduction amount, MD state tax due, local tax rate, local due, and so on. In a more perfect world, Turbotax would've highlighted the fact I'm not required to file a MD tax return (for the given reason) rather than simply congratulating me for not owing any tax after it completed the state review with half the return blank. 

[JotikaT2]

I am glad you were able to work it through!  

I will make a note of this to suggest the change to the wording for our developers.

[wprotzman]

Thanks for posting this.  I was having the same question.