Oregon Itemized Deductions vs. Standard Deduction

[Farris_S]

Warning to anyone who intends to itemize deductions for Oregon for 2023.  My Oregon return was only showing the standard deduction even though I entered all of the information for real property taxes, mortgage interest, and charitable contributions in the federal input.  This was not a problem on my 2022 return.  After reading another post, I found in "View" an Oregon worksheet that is in the background that I never completed.  There was a box checked that said to take the standard deduction, even if the Oregon itemized deductions were higher.  After I removed the "x" that I never put there, the return calculated correctly.  The Oregon guided input section asked very few questions and so I don't understand how this box was checked and why anyone would check this box.  

[daveninoregon]

I am experiencing the same problem:  my Oregon itemized deduction would be higher than the standard deduction, yet Turbotax is reporting only the standard deduction.  What is the name of the worksheet with the checkbox that solved the problem for you?  I can't seem to find that worksheet in the Forms in My Return column.   (I am using a downloaded version of turbotax).  Thank you so much for your post and for a response to this. 

[DMarkM1]

Part V of the Oregon "Info Worksheet" is where you will find the checkboxes for selecting itemized or standard deductions in special situations on the Oregon state tax forms.  In most situations these boxes should be "unchecked" allowing the higher deduction to be automatically selected. 

[Farris_S]

In the top menu bar, choose "View", then "Forms", then go down to "Oregon Individual" and choose the "Information Worksheet".  In the information worksheet, go to Part V for Standard Deduction vs. Itemized Deductions.  I suspect your return has the same issue where there was an "x" in the box for "Take the standard deduction even if less than itemized deductions".  I removed the "x" and then the return calculated correctly.  Now I am quite certain that this is a TurboTax programming problem and I didn't accidentally respond incorrectly to a question.  I wonder how many Oregon taxpayers will pay too much because of this issue?

[daveninoregon]

Farris_S and DMarkM1, thank you so much! That totally solved the problem.  Like you, Farris_S, I have no idea how that box got checked.   While in the Step-by-Step mode, I do not recall any point at which I answered a question which would have triggered  the checking of the box.  I agree that it's a likely a mistake in how the TT software is writtent this year and likely to cost other Oregon filers a lot of money if they do not notice the problem and take the them to try to resolve it.  I feel that the state returns in TurboTax are just not written or tested as carefully as the federal returns. 

[Oregon58]

You just verified what I finally discovered as well.  I have always put in my federal deductions even though they the standard deduction is higher because on my Oregon form I could use those deductions. 

This year there was no way to tell Oregon to itemize instead of using the standard deduction.  Clicking on the "Forms" button on the tool bar and Looking at the Oregon forms I saw the "Std/itemized Wks"  for deciding to use itemized vs standard and it said to itemize! (huge difference favoring itemizing).

I kept trying to figure out how to make it itemize and finally under Oregon Forms, I found a form called "Info Worksheet" and in it under "Part V Standard deductions/Itemized deductions" changed the checkbox to itemize even if it is less (which it clearly is not less) and that changed everything and got me about $2,000 more refund because it now used the itemized deductions. 

This is clearly a bug in the Oregon State form that needs to be fixed ASAP where the program is ignoring the worksheet saying to use the itemize deduction over the standard deduction.  OREGON RESIDENCE BE AWARE!

[Oregon58]

Update: I missed the discussion about unchecking all of those Part V boxes which then allows the program to automatically pick the larger deduction correctly.  That does work for me and I will go with that solution. 

But like others, I have no idea how the "Use standard deduction even if smaller" got checked in the first place. 

Before exploring the forms, I had even tried forcing my Federal to use itemized to see if it changed the Oregon to do the same and it did not affect it.  At least in the Federal they show you what the program assumes is best (std/itemized) and allow you to change it.  But Oregon does not let you see that or change it unless you go to the forms and do it.  Scary how many may have this problem and don't realize it.

[Wary_User]

Same, same, same! I discovered this on 2023 forms, looked back at 2022 and found that TurboTax had forfeited $500 by using standard instead of itemized deductions. Now I’ll have to file an amendment for 2022 to get that money back from Oregon. And then I have to wait to file 2023, because the kicker calculation is affected by 2022 tax paid. What a mess! Has ANYONE raised this to TurboTax tech as an urgent issue? Can we cash-in on their “guarantee” of highest refund and get at least one year’s purchase price refunded?

[Pilgrim_44]

Thank you, this was very helpful.  I had the same problem and was getting quite frustrated.  I found the check box and unchecked it.  Thank!!!

[beijing-duck]

YES, YES, YES!  I found this same error by chance when reviewing my oregon final form by hand after it had passed all the turbotax checking and reviews, and it was going to cost me $700 more in tax.  I finally found the checkbox that fixed it and came here to report this very important bug to turbotax.   But how do you report a bug to them, i don't see it anywhere in the menus!  If a turbotax employee or some half-intelligent bot is watching these messages please report this bug to turbotax developers!  And put an easy way in your system to report a bug, what's wrong with you guys, every package has bugs, why are you making it so hard to report them?   I think this is a pretty major bug, if turbotax is not giving us an easy way to publicize it to others, please someone put this up on social media, I don't have very active accounts there.

[tsengf]

I wish I had found this topic before I filed. I had the same issue on my Oregon taxes this year. The software picked the standard deduction while the itemized deduction was higher. This was not an issue in past years.

I ended up going to the form and manually fixing the deduction amount. It was suppose to pick the larger of two numbers and it picked the wrong one. I just manually edited the line to reflect the larger number.

I came to this forum after working for customer service for about a week. Just got off the phone with a manager and she said that TurboTax is unaware of this issue. I guess she did not see this posting. It is very unassuring that TurboTax is making wrong decisions. Very sad situation that TurboTax cannot acknowledge this error.

[Wary_User]

tsengf, thanks for your additional validation. Are you in a position to elevate this issue further at TurboTax? From my viewpoint, it’s not a user error, and TurboTax should at minimum be notifying Oregon filers (they know who we are, obviously) of this potential issue. But beyond that, they should be volunteering purchase price refunds to affected users. I, for one, will be serious considering jumping ship next year, since they’ve forced me into an amended 2022 Oregon return and delayed filing for 2023 until the 2022 error is resolved.

[tsengf]

Sigh, I reached out to a supervisor after there was no action on my original request. The supervisor claims that it is "off season" now and getting someone to look into this issue is difficult. I asked her to make the request anyway. Immediately after I finished the call, I received an email indicating that my request has been closed. I have no idea why Intuit is not taking this issue seriously. I wonder how many users unknowingly filed an incorrect return due to this bug.

[tsengf]

Here we go.

https://www.lagrandeobserver.com/news/state/turb[product key removed]ted-more-than-12-000-oregon-tax...