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RaifH
Expert Alumni

Still getting Error - Deductible Home Mortgage Interest Worksheet

The mortgage interest limit is calculated based on your average mortgage balance for the entire year, not individually to each loan. In this situation, you will want to calculate the average monthly balance for each loan and report that as your outstanding mortgage principal. You can do this by taking the Outstanding Mortgage Principal reported in Box 2, multiplying it by the number of months you carried the loan, and dividing that number by 12. Do this for both loans and report the calculated number as the Outstanding Mortgage Principal:

  1. In the Federal > Deductions & Credits section of your return, scroll down to Your Home and click Revisit/Start next to Mortgage Interest and Refinancing (Form 1098)
  2. Answer the questions and enter the information from your Form 1098s. Use the calculated amount for Outstanding Mortgage Principal. For Box 3, Mortgage Origination Date, use the original purchase date of your old home even if the form is for a refinance.
  3. Answer What kind of property is this loan secured by? Mark one loan as the primary and the other as the secondary, it doesn't matter which. 
  4. Answer Yes or No to  We didn't pay any points.
  5. Answer Yes to Let's see if this is the most recent form for this loan.
  6. Answer Is this the original loan used to buy your property? 
  7. Answer Is this loan a HELOC or a refinance? if it is not the original loan
  8. Answer Did you take cash out? if this loan is a refinance or HELOC
  9. Once you have entered both and are back in the Home loan deduction summary screen, click Done.
  10. Answer NO to Do either of these apply to this loan? Answer No even if it does apply, by using the mortgage origin date of the original purchase back in step 3, TurboTax will correctly apply the proper mortgage limit on your home acquisition debt. 
  11. Enter the calculated outstanding loan balance again for the amount on January 1, 2022 in the first field. Leave the second field blank. 

TurboTax calculates the average balance by taking the average of the outstanding mortgage principal on Form 1098 and your balance due on January 1, 2022. By reporting your calculated average balance for both, it will apply the mortgage limit based on that amount. 

 

@leadmcenroe

zoso1f
Returning Member

Still getting Error - Deductible Home Mortgage Interest Worksheet

Terrible, really.

 

Line 18 of the worksheet has an error. It multiplies line 14 by 17, instead of line 13 by 15 as the instruction says. So either the instruction is wrong, or the result is wrong.

Still getting Error - Deductible Home Mortgage Interest Worksheet

this is true but if you're exception to the rule, i believe it's not averaging the amounts correctly.

BD86
Returning Member

Still getting Error - Deductible Home Mortgage Interest Worksheet

Still an issue.  Bought a house this year, and TT seems to be summing up the mortgage amount?  This is a common situation! 

Still getting Error - Deductible Home Mortgage Interest Worksheet

Called TurboTax and they advised me to pay for expert tax help, and said it doesn't matter if it's a software bug and they don't care about your woes. CSR recommended paying for extension until they "might" fix the bug later on. Did live support and they said they would transfer me to tax expert for free if it turns out to be software bug... and then they disconnected on me.

 

TLDR for all others scrambling to finish their taxes on time. I had the situation where i sold a home and bought a new home. I deleted the interest form from the old home and only entered the new one. On the deductible home mortgage interest worksheet, I override question 19 with the interest of the old home since it's "excluded" from limitation. and then I added the property tax paid for the old home under "other property tax". so simple workaround, surprised they couldn't fix the form...

sapountzis
Returning Member

Still getting Error - Deductible Home Mortgage Interest Worksheet

I get a 404 error when I click on this link. Are you planning to fix this? As others have said, this has been the situation for years and this year I cannot even override the entries in the Deductible Mortgage worksheet

AmyC
Expert Alumni

Still getting Error - Deductible Home Mortgage Interest Worksheet

The worksheets are not a part of the return. You can make one correct entry instead. Your goal is to file an accurate return.

 

 See About Publication 936, Home Mortgage Interest Deduction part II on page 9. Use  page 12 to combine all loans. Only one table 1 is used for all of your loans in one place. The instructions to go through line by line are after the table. There are examples throughout to help you. 

 

Page 13 has mixed-use mortgages.

 

@sapountzis

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Still getting Error - Deductible Home Mortgage Interest Worksheet

The only way I could fix the problem was to stop the step bu step directions and go to the worksheet.   It apparently imported info incorrectly from the step by step.   Once I corrected on the worksheet, all became correct on the return

SDD52
Returning Member

Still getting Error - Deductible Home Mortgage Interest Worksheet

Hi All - 

I think there may be some ideas getting conflated here, but I do believe the mortgage interest limitation worksheet is incorrect (both in TurboTax and the IRS provided worksheet in the publication). As an FYI, I am a tax attorney (but M&A, so I am not well versed with individual taxes, but I do read and interpret tax law all day). Also, I stayed at a Holiday Inn last night, so I got that going for me.

 

Internal Revenue Code Section 163(h) says that, generally speaking, interest is tax deductible on acquisition indebtedness up to interest attributable to $1M in loan principal. This applies to home loans from 1987 to 2017 (assuming you are a calendar year taxpayer). For loans taken out after December 31, 2017, this limit/cap is reduced to $750k in principal. See Section 163(h)(3)(F)(II). More importantly, see Section 163(h)(3)(F)(III), which I have directly pasted below (fuscia font is my clarifying commentary; bold, underline, etc. for emphasis:(

  • (III)Treatment of indebtedness incurred on or before December 15, 2017
    • Subclause (II) (which imposes the $750k limit) shall not apply to any indebtedness incurred on or before December 15, 2017, and, in applying such subclause to any indebtedness incurred after such date (apply the 750k limit to post-2017 debt), the $750k limitation under such subclause shall be reduced (but not below zero) by the amount of any indebtedness incurred on or before December 15, 2017, which is treated as acquisition indebtedness for purposes of this subsection for the taxable year.

I interpret the above to say two critical things:

  1. The $750k limit does not apply to acquisition indebtedness incurred prior to December 15, 2017, period.
  2. When applying the $750k limit to post-2017 acquisition indebtedness for which is interest is being claimed in that tax year, the $750k limit is reduced by the average principal of acquisition indebtedness for which interest is deducted for pre-2018 acquisition indebtedness. This conceptually makes sense because say you have pre-2018 acquisition indebtedness in excess of $1M, you should be able to deduct this interest up to the $1M principal limit. However, this would also reduce your $750k limit to zero, so if you had post-2017 indebtedness in the same tax year (say because you sold a house in 2021 that you bought in 2015 and you bought another, new house in 2021), you would not be able to deduct this interest in 2021 as your post-2017 acquisition indebtedness limit would be zero. This seems like a correct result as you are not deducting any interest in excess of the original $1M principal cap for pre-2018 acquisition indebtedness, and you aren't double dipping by deducting more interest attributable to the post-2017 acquisition indebtedness. 

 

The IRS worksheet and TurboTax are combining the pre-2018 and post-2017 acquisition indebtedness and applying the 750k limit. This to me is incorrect based on the tax law as written. As noted above, it clearly states the $750k limit should not be applied to pre-2018 acquisition indebtedness, full stop. So for people who have both kinds of acquisition indebtedness in a single tax year (likely because they sold an old house and bought a new one), interest attributable to the pre-2018 acquisition indebtedness should be tax deductible up to the $1M principal cap, and to the extent that interest is deducted, the 750k limit applicable to post-2017 acquisition indebtedness should be reduced by the principal of the pre-2018 acquisition indebtedness that interest was deducted for. 

 

For my fact pattern (sold a house with pre-2018 loan in 2021, bought a new house a week later with a 2021 loan), this is incorrect tax treatment and haircutting my allowable mortgage interest deductions substantially. I am not sure of a solution in the software, but presumably I will need to hardcode a number in somewhere.

 

Sincerely welcome any feedback/solutions here.

 

TurboTax needs to fix this as this is certainly a bust in my eyes.

 

Thanks.

 

SDD52
Returning Member

Still getting Error - Deductible Home Mortgage Interest Worksheet

You figure out a solution here? I definitely think what TurboTax and the IRS worksheet is doing is incorrect.

AmyC
Expert Alumni

Still getting Error - Deductible Home Mortgage Interest Worksheet

In the program, there is a pop-up box which explains to use the original date for the refinanced loan to get the grandfather rule. Otherwise, you will not get the deduction. This is only true if the refinanced debt does not exceed the debt balance at the time of refinancing. 

@SDD52

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SDD52
Returning Member

Still getting Error - Deductible Home Mortgage Interest Worksheet

Not a refinance. I sold my home with a pre-2018 mortgage, bought another home the same year with what is obviously a post-2017 mortgage.

 

Are you saying report the mortgage on the sold property as a refinance to get the system to comply?

Still getting Error - Deductible Home Mortgage Interest Worksheet

This is still unacceptably broken. If you're considering buying TT and have a mortgage that may be sold from one bank to another (anyone), don't buy TT.

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