Massachusetts Circuit Breaker Credit

[PHBoston]

Turbo Tax 2024 automatically adds the Circuit Breaker Credit when you enter rent payments if the taxpayer's income is below the limit, but there is no way to delete it if the taxpayer received a rental subsidy or rents from a non profit entity (that pays no property taxes).  I left " I paid real estate taxes" unchecked in the Step by Step view and also went to the CB Form and checked the box for "Received rental subsidy" but neither one worked and the CB Credit still showed. The only way to take it off was to delete the rent payments (changed to zero).

Is there another fix?  Zeroing out the rent was a not problem in this case because the rent deduction was not needed, but it would be a problem for someone who does not qualify for the CB Credit but needs the rent deduction to lower their taxable income.

[Vanessa A]

If you received a rental subsidy that covers all of your rent, you should not be entering the rent at all.  You can only enter for the credit the amount that you paid, and it needs to be reduced by any subsidies received. 

[PHBoston]

I wrote because Turbo Tax seems to have a bug that does not allow it sort out who is eligible for the Circuit Breaker Credit. 

Although I was not eligible, I was given the CB Credit (a dollar for dollar reduction in my tax liability), which wiped out my tax due and would  have entitled me to a payment from the state that I did not qualify for.  I tried using the Step by Step questions and the forms to get to back out the credit but the only thing that worked was deleting the rent payments.  Because zeroing out rent did not impact my tax due, I went with it, but it would have been a real problem if I needed the deduction to reduce my taxable income and could not get Turbo Tax to do it without also giving me the Circuit Breaker credit.

As I said above, anyone should be able to report their rent payments because they get a deduction that reduces their taxable income, but when rent is entered Turbo Tax looks to see if they meet the age and income criteria for the CB Credit and recalculates the tax due.  Then, eligibility is verified in the Step by Step questions and that's when things go haywire. I think the eligibility questions were changed for 2024 and are less clear and on top of that, Turbo Tax does not produce the right result.