Turbotax Glitch? CA Form 3800 asking for Parents CA 540 info, but parents are not CA residents, nor are they required to file CA taxes

[Daisy44]

There seems to be a glitch in Turbotax. On my kid's 2023 CA 540NR tax return, Turbotax is forcing a form CA form FTB 3800 (hereafter CA 3800) to be filled out, asking for the parents' CA 540 tax return info. Parents have never lived in or earned income in CA and have never and are not obligated to file a CA tax return. Kid is a dependent on parents' taxes, a nonresident of CA, and has unearned income NOT sourced to CA in any way--said unearned income was earned/sourced in another state. 

Kid is filing in CA as a CA non-resident due to some CA income earned in CA. Kid was a non-resident of CA for 2023. The CA 3800 should not have been generated by Turbotax at all as kid does not meet the criteria for filing this form (kid does not have any unearned income taxable by CA). The Turbotax interview questions I completed reflect this situation properly as far as I can tell. So, I can not understand why Turbotax is forcing this form on me. 

If I delete the CA 3800 form, Turbotax adds it back in.

 I really would rather not just add zeros to the parts of CA  3800 that request parents CA income because it just seems wrong to file a form that is not required, and have to add zeros to this non-required form to overcome the glitch in order to be able to use Turbotax to file my kid's CA taxes. I am assuming that maybe there's an interview question in the program that is causing this glitch, but I can not suss out which one it could be.  

I have researched this issue here and although others have posted about it, I have not yet seen a solution.  Other than hand filing and mailing in kid's CA tax return (i.e. not using Turbotax) can anyone generate a solution to this? Am I missing something?

[Daisy44]

After thinking about my issue for a few days, it occurred to me that the biggest problem is that the CA form 3800 keeps on re-populating after I delete it. Since clearly form 3800 is not required to be filed in my case, Turbotax should not be forcing it on me, which to me means that there is a glitch in the software. I have gone thorough the interview questions for federal and state very carefully several times and I can not find an entry to change in order to  not  trigger this form.

Has anyone successfully deleted a CA form 3800? If so, how did you accomplish this?

[MonikaK1]

If federal Form 8615, Tax for Certain Children Who Have Unearned Income, was filed with the child’s federal tax return, this could be causing it to appear with your California Nonresident return. 

You could try (1) deleting the California return (not just deleting Form 3800) and starting it again, to see if this removes the unneeded Form 3800, or (2) completing the Form 3800 so that it shows zero California unearned income, if that is correct.

I am reporting this issue for further review.

[M1WV]

Was there ever a resolve to this?

I have a family from and lives in MD who is having the same issue in 2025.  Child in Cali reident for 1.5 years and doesn't seem to require this form.

Asking for line 19 of 540 but parents have not complete a CA 540.   If they put in the MD or Federal they put them into a maze.

Any work around? 

[M1WV]

Someone helped with:

L C

Line 6 – Enter the taxable income from Form 540, line 19; or total taxable income from Form 540NR, line 19 of the parent whose name is shown at the top of form FTB 3800. If the parent's taxable income is less than zero, enter -0- on line 6. If the parent filed a joint California tax return, enter the taxable income shown on that return even if the parent's spouse/RDP is not the child's parent.