Charitable Contribution Error on California CA(540) and 540

[Di - J]

What should we do? 

Is TT going to compensate for this problem they created?

[Sawman]

Mine was rejected a second time today, chatted with TT staff and they couldn't help me fix it. Their last recommendation to me was to MAIL my forms instead of e-filing. 

Not at all satisfied with the customer service provided on this error.

[anigurophrat]

@mightymokeOhh - that's a great idea. Once my return is rejected again I'll give that a shot.

[musubi9]

I had the same thought as well. But the State and the IRS are two separate entities for filing - and it isn't like I'm falsifying information. In fact, I'm opting to forfeit the charitable contribution on the state return. And for me, it didn't affect my state return and my Fed was already accepted. It did change my Fed tax liability, but it was negligible so frankly I don't care if I lost a bit of the deduction. I just want it to be done with.

[mightymoke]

I deleted the information and re-entered the same figures/information.  The refunds were not changed because the figures were the same.  

I had $228 in charitable donations when my Federal and State taxes were initially submitted.  The Federal was accepted the same day and my State was rejected the next day.

Reading some posts (above) I read that issue had to be fixed in the Federal return.  I went back to the Federal, deleted my $228 and then re-entered the same figure, in the same location, ran a Federal review for errors, went to State and ran the review, Efiled and the return was accepted the same day.

[musubi9]

Where did you re-enter the same information on the Federal forms? In the same exact place it asks? When I was asked, it was one of the early steps on Credits and Deductions.

[JBristow1]

@Jetfan My Federal Refund calculation dropped around $60. But those Charitable Contributions are valid AND were submitted on my accepted Federal Tax Return which contain the correct Federal Refund amount. CA is the only issue - and adjusting the 1040 to not have those amounts allowed my CA Return to be accepted and had no impact on the CA Refund Amount. Remember - you're simply sending CA a copy of your Federal Return  - so the one they have contains $0 in that bucket, but it appears they don't use that in their calculations anyways. Pain in the rear to be certain and the fact it's still happening AND the fact people had to deal with this in 2020 and now 2021 tax years? Embarrassing Intuit. 

[musubi9]

That's consistent with my submission. It didn't change my CA refund anyway, so it must not be used the same way as the Federal Charitable Contributions.

[mightymoke]

Your CA is still a work in progress and it gets its figures from the Federal, every time something is changed on the Federal it affects the State.   

[mightymoke]

I was rejected once and then redid the State and was rejected a second time.  I did not get my State accepted until I went back and deleted and then re-entered the same figure in the Federal.  Again, I did not change any figures, I only deleted and re-entered the same numbers.

[musubi9]

Well whatever you did appears to be the correct way to handle. Because with this method you aren't understating your deduction and it's the same on both the Fed/State. Kudos to you -- at this point, however, I'm not amending. Hope I have better luck next year!

[Rebar08]

Go to your Federal side and take out your charitable contribution, (it shouldn’t change your state return amount) then go to your state taxes and you can re-file for free!!

[mightymoke]

@Bob225   I did not not change anything, I only deleted and re-entered the same information

[musubi9]

This is what I did when I re-filed - my State was accepted (it also didn't change the amount). But technically as someone said earlier, I claimed the Charitable Contributions on the Fed-side (my federal was Approved immediately) but not on State-side, so they are slightly different.

[Sawman]

None of this helps fix my issue because I took the Standard deduction on my federal return and claimed the $300 allowable under the standard deduction. As far as I can tell, there's nowhere in the online version where I can edit my federal 1040 form to remove that $300 charitable contribution, so any time I refile my California return, it just automatically picks that up from the federal form and rejects it. So tired of this.