My pension was neither earned in NM nor sent from NM. I earned it working as a teacher in NC. But when I put "0" for how much of my pension was "earned in NM," I find on review that TurboTax is requiring me to include my pension income in that box. I can't even correct it in "forms." It seems to me something is therefore probably not coming out right.
The question asked is, "How much of your pension was earned in NM?" But firstly, pensions are not considered earned income according to the IRS and the TT definitions. Pensions are received income but not earned income. So the question makes no sense. (Taxes do get paid on pensions, but they shouldn't be entered as earned income, right?) Was the TurboTax question supposed to ask "How much of your pension was received in NM?"
[Where I worked while earning the pension would be irrelevant, since taxes on pensions are paid to the state where you currently live, not to the state where you originally worked to earn them. So there's no reason "where I earned" the pension would even be asked, right?]
Furthermore, I would answer "0" to "How much of your pension was earned in NM?" because my pension is sent by NC. I earned it there during my work as a public school teacher. [Nor is all of my NC pension even taxable, thanks to a successful lawsuit by teachers decades ago. For teachers who worked during a certain time period, our pension was already taxed, so our 1099-R clarifies how much of our pension is actually taxable.]
It seems to me, I should be allowed to put "0" as that's the correct answer to the question.
Or the TT question needs to be reworded on two counts.
How do we solve this, please? Thank you.
