I entered my latest 1098 Mortgage Interest Form, but only my points have been added to my Schedule A Itemized Deductions?

[ColeenD3]

Go back over your entries for the mortgage. Make sure you entered them correctly. If nothing appears to be incorrect, try to delete Schedule A and redo it.

Your home mortgage interest deduction may be limited.  See the 3rd bullet point below.  There is a limit on the amount of debt that interest can be deducted on.  If you meet the other requirements and your loan is for less than $750,000, your deduction is not limited.   TurboTax will calculate the amount of your deduction for you based on your 1098 entries.  

The IRS lets you deduct your mortgage interest, but only if you itemize deductions. You can't deduct the principal (the borrowed money you're paying back).   In addition to itemizing, these conditions must be met for mortgage interest to be deductible:

• The loan is secured, which means the lender has some kind of guarantee of payment, usually in the form of property. If a borrower defaults on payments, the lender can seize the property that’s securing the loan. If you’re buying or refinancing a home, especially if it’s your first home, the loan is usually secured by the home you’re buying or refinancing.
• The home with the secured loan must have sleeping, cooking, and toilet facilities.
• The debt can’t exceed $750,000 (or $1,000,000 if the loan was taken before December 16, 2017) in order to get the full deduction.
• You or someone on your tax return must have signed or co-signed the loan.
• If you rented out the home, you must have used the home more than 14 days during the tax year or 10% of the number of days you rented it out, whichever is greater.

Here's the general procedure for viewing the forms list and deleting unwanted forms, schedules, and worksheets in TurboTax Online:

1. Open or continue your return in TurboTax.
2. In the left menu, select Tax Tools and then Tools.
3. In the pop-up window Tool Center, choose Delete a form.
4. Select Delete next to the form/schedule/worksheet in the list and follow the instructions.

[bacsweeney]

It did not work.

I deleted Schedule A several times and manually entered my mortgage interest Form 1098. Turbo-Tax temporarily deducted mortgage interest and reduced my Tax substatially, but then during review removed mortgage interest from Schedule A. The mortgage tax worksheets are improperly populated and not calculating an amount for Sched A.  The only mortgage interest getting to my Sched A is the amortized points.

This is the  second year in a row Turbotax has been unable to compute my taxes due to the mortgage interest deduction. Is there a known problem with mortgage interest? Will it be fixed in time for an ontime 2021 tax submission?

[KrisD15]

The requirements for Home Mortgage Interest to be deductible changed several years ago. 

Basically the main change involved this-

at one time you could borrow against your home and all interest could be claimed (you could pay down credit cards or purchase a car with the cash taken out) 

now, only interest in respect to your home may be used (build, purchase or improve)

There is also now a limit on the amount you can borrow.

The information needed to make this determination is not listed on the 1098

The information needed to make this determination is asked for during the interview in the 1098 section.

Therefore, when you enter the 1098, you must answer the questions which follow in a way to let the program know if all the interest is deductible or not. 

If you answer that the loan is the original loan, the program knows that all the interest is deductible (because the original loan is for the purchase of the home) as long as the loan is not over the limit.

If you answer that this is NOT the original loan, you need to tell the program what you did with the new loan. If you simply refinanced and did not take out cash, again the interest would be allowed (if below the loan limit). 

If you refinanced, took out cash and used the cash for any purpose other than adding value to the home (improve) the portion of the interest attributed to this amount of cash taken out would not be eligible. 

It is a complicated calculation, but hopefully if you have a better understanding of what the program is trying to learn, you may better understand the interview questions.