TurboTax refusing to let me amend my return without including a payment despite my still being owed a large refund

[jjmg2k]

I filed taxes on April 8th but still have not received my refund, 31 days later.

I have discovered that my refund is being held up by an error that I believe was TurboTax's fault (more below on that). Bottom line, the refund I should get from the IRS is $600 less than TurboTax originally calculated and transmitted on April 8th. Either way, I would like to amend my return to tell the IRS to reduce the size of my refund by $600 so as to get my refund sooner, and I would like to take advantage of a new TurboTax feature whereby for the first time it now permits electronic filing of amended returns.

However, TurboTax doesn't ask me whether I have received my refund yet. It appears to just assume I have, so it is insisting I must pay the IRS $600 with the amended return instead of just transmitting the amended return solely to tell the IRS that my refund should be $600 smaller. It does give me the option to "pay by check later", "as long as my payment is postmarked on or before 5/17/2021", but I don't need to include any payment since I don't owe anything.

It would be absurd for me to confuse the IRS further by paying them $600 when I'm still owed a large refund ($3,501 instead of $4,101). It would make much more sense for me to send the corrected forms with a new lower refund amount.

Is there any way, short of printing and filing by paper, for me to get TurboTax to simply transmit the amended return without it insisting that I owe the IRS $600?

Background: I normally get my refunds within a few days of filing, and I usually file early, usually in March after I receive the last of my 1099-DIVs. I received my state refund within 6 days of filing. It is unprecedented for me not to receive a refund for 30 days -- I don't think I've ever waited longer than a week. Granted, I expect COVID-era delays, but the IRS specifically says that refunds should be paid within 21 days, and after that, you can call them and speak to an agent to ask what's going on.

On Friday May 7th, when it had been 29 days, I spoke to an agent, who told me that my return had been flagged with an error, and had been put into a very large backlog of other returns with the same error, and that I would have to wait up to 10 more weeks for my refund while the IRS "researched the discrepancy" between what they think I received for Economic Impact Payments vs. what TurboTax reported.

The problem is that TurboTax reported somehow that we only received half of our second COVID stimulus (aka EIP 2) payment. I file married filing jointly, so our EIP 1 was $2,400 and our EIP 2 was $1,200. Our combined AGI in 2020 was under $150k.

I told the agent that we had indeed received our EIP amounts in full. He told me that he was not surprised, because the IRS has been flooded by "many, many people" who are saying that their tax software reported a different amount from what they had tried to say they had received.

I went and looked at the PDF files TurboTax generated back in April and indeed I discovered that on something called the Recovery Rebate Credit Worksheet form, TurboTax had entered $600 instead of $1,200 for EIP 2. I had no memory of having ever entered such a number.

I reopened TurboTax 2020, and jumped directly to the Recovery Rebase step-by-step page. I saw on that page that under the listing of EIP amounts, where it asked if these amounts were correct (they were), neither "Yes" nor "No" were selected.

It appears that I saw the correct amounts, neglected to choose either yes or no, and hit "Continue". TurboTax appears to have arbitrarily chosen that I had only received $600. The Recovery Rebate Credit form is new, so I never saw or noticed the error. While I can't prove that I didn't have a brain fart back in April and somehow find a way to enter $600 somewhere despite the correct number of $1,200 being right up there on the page, I find it hard to believe I would have done so knowing that we received $1,200.

Regardless; since my refund is at risk of being held up until June 17th, I would prefer to simply amend my return now, and would prefer to do it electronically.

Is there any way to get TurboTax to stop thinking I need to pay the IRS to amend my return?

[xmasbaby0]

Your expectations of what would happen if you amend are unrealistic.   It takes the IRS about six months to process an amended return.   As has been explained to you already, there are a LOT of people (who used all kinds of tax preparation software programs) who answered the recovery rebate credit questions incorrectly.  The IRS does not want the added burden of an amended return from you for this.   They are cross checking for the EIP payments and they will adjust your refund---even it is delayed a bit by the process.

You are among millions of people who are experiencing a delay in receiving your 2020 refund.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/personalfinance/where-is-my-damn-irs-tax-refund-new-answers-emerge-a...

[jjmg2k]

Thanks for your reply. My expectations which you call realistic are however based on personal experience. Over the past 30 years, I've submitted three or four amended returns shortly after my initial return has been transmitted by TurboTax and accepted, but well before the filing deadline, and in each case, the amended return was successfully processed with no delay, not six months later. Perhaps the six month timeline is based on submitting amended returns *after* the filing deadline and after the original return has been processed?

I'm still interested in why TurboTax is unable to handle the fact that my initial refund was never received, so an amended return shouldn't have to be accompanied by a payment.