Double counting of refi mortgage principal balances

[JoannaB2]

Yes, you may claim mortgage interest deduction regardless of the number of lenders as long as the loan does not exceed $750,000 for married filing joint ($375,000 for married filing separate). The home mortgage loan must be secured by the property to qualify for the deduction. The following are steps to enter deductible home mortgage interest:

1. Login to Turbo Tax.
2. Under Federal Taxes, in Deduction and Credit tab, click "I'll choose what I work on".
3. Under " Your 2020 Deduction and Credit", click update or start next to Mortgage Interest, Refinancing, and Insurance.
4. Under " Home Loan deduction summary" click edit  and enter the lender's information, one at a time.
5. Click continue until you get to the screen " Is this loan secured by a property of yours?" 
6. Click Done.
7. The next screen is a question " Do any of the situation apply to you?". Your answer here will determine if your loan exceeded the allowed home mortgage loan amount.

See, why is my home mortgage, if you encounter any issues,

[AmyC]

@JantovenNF to undo the over-ride, follow the same process that you did to override. You can use the control D or right click for the option to cancel the override.

[JantovenNF]

@AmyC 

Okay, thank you.  I'll wait until we get a resolution on this issue before doing so.  I sure hope they fix this soon.

[Rleach72]

I'm working on my tax return and have the same concern as many others.  TurboTax is double counting my refinanced loan principal.  Can someone please tell me when this technical issue will be resolved?

[kayachka]

I'm having the same issue - TurboTax is double counting the amount of my refinanced loan principal, which puts us over the $750k limit. 

Does anybody know when TurboTax plans to fix this issue??

[gaoch]

Has this issue been resolved? I'm using the web version of TurboTax. It looks like I'm still having the issue of refinance principal is double counted. Does anyone know how to fix it?

[ToddL99]

Enter "$1" as the "outstanding mortgage principal" amount (Box 2, Form 1098 Mortgage Interest) on the original 1098 (the one you paid off with the refinance).

This will not have any effect on your tax calculation and will not generate an error in either TurboTax or with the IRS, From an economic perspective, it is accurate - you owed virtually nothing on this mortgage at the end of 2020. 

Why not enter "0"? There are many places in TurboTax where you must make a non-zero entry, primarily to let the program know that you answered the question and that the answer makes some sense.  

Why not leave it blank? The IRS requires an entry in Box 2 of this form.

In this case, entering "$1" tells the program that you didn't forget to answer the question and that you had at least some amount of a mortgage loan balance to justify claiming an interest deduction. 

@gaoch