Excess social security withholding

[lmevans70]

After entering my husband's W-2, Turbo Tax is stating that he has an excess of social security taxes withheld. We requested an updated W-2 from his employer. His emploer says it is the correct withholding amount. When I calculate Box 4 by 0.062 the SS withholding is correct. How can I get Turbo Tax to recognize this?

[DoninGA]

If the SS taxes withheld are even off by $0.01 the program will give you the message that the employer needs to refund the excess SS withheld.  Try removing the cents for the SS taxes in box 4 of the W-2 and that should correct the problem.  This change will not affect your tax return or the amount of actual SS taxes withheld and sent to the SS Administration.

[lmevans70]

I removed the cents and Turbo Tax is still telling me that there is an excess withheld of 186.00.

[DoninGA]

What is the amount in box 3 of the W-2?  What is the amount in box 4 of the W-2?

[SteamTrain]

Does the notice indicate that his particular employer withheld too much? or just a general statement that too much was withheld.

For instance, if you had entered your own W-2, but accidentally assigned it as his, then there could be too much total between the two W-2 forms...but only because one of the W-2 forms was assigned to the wrong person.

[lmevans70]

Box 3 = $57,174.78. Box 4 = $3,544.84

[DoninGA]

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@lmevans70 wrote:

Box 3 = $57,174.78. Box 4 = $3,544.84

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That would be correct.  What happens if you enter 3544.83 or 3544.82 in box 4 and continue?

[lmevans70]

Turbo Tax is stating that "It looks like you are due a refund from your employer". Then lists his employer. I do not have taxes withheld as I am receiving disability. I have opted not to have taxes withheld from my Group DI.

[lmevans70]

I entered 3,544.82 and still an excess withheld of 185.97.

[DoninGA · Accepted solution]

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@lmevans70 wrote:

I entered 3,544.82 and still an excess withheld of 185.97.

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Delete the W-2 and re-enter manually 

[lmevans70]

That worked. Thanks.

[JohnW152]

If TurboTax is telling you that there’s excess Social Security withholding of $186.00, that means the program is “seeing” Social Security withholding of $8,723.40 for your husband – the maximum amount that can be withheld ($8,537.40) plus $186.  See Line 10, Excess Social Security and Tier 1 RRTA Tax Withheld in the Instructions for Forms 1040 and 1040-SR for more information.

SteamTrain’s guess that perhaps one of your W-2s was entered under your husband’s SSN seems the likely culprit.  Double-check all of the W-2s that you’ve entered into TurboTax. 

You might also try deleting all of the W-2s, then re-input them.  Please see the TurboTax Help article How do I delete a W-2? for guidance.

Also see the TurboTax Help article Can I get a refund for excess Social Security tax withheld? for more information.

[lmevans70]

I think I entered too many numbers to make it work and it didn't like that. Got hung up on whatever numbers I originally entered.

[tkocarek]

I found that when I downloaded the W2s, TurboTax assigned the same employer ID to both W2s.  All the other data downloaded correctly. Once I corrected the IDs it calculated the Social Security withholdings correctly and acknowledged a refund. So check your employee IDs.  I can't believe they put this product on the market with these errors.  And to suggest that I should go to my employer for a refund?  They obviously have people working on the software that don't know anything about tax code.  Very disappointed.

[TK421451]

TT 2021 desktop seems to have several bugs. I had two employers - yet TT desktop attributed all the SS Withholding to only one and said I needed a W-2C. The online version correctly adds the excess amount to line 7 of 1040 sched 3- yet the desktop version doesn't. I had to add it manually.

And no easy way to reach a developer to fix this error.