Solved: Why does TurboTax think my average balance is over $750K on my $500K refinanced mortgage and not let me deduct the full amount of interest I paid?

Expert Alumni

Feb 7, 2021 12:26:21 PM

Some TurboTax customers are experiencing an issue with their Home Mortgage Average Balance. This can cause in the the Home Mortgage Interest to be incorrectly limited.

If you're experiencing the issue above, please go here to receive email notifications when any updates related to this issue become available.

New Member

Feb 10, 2021 9:35:25 AM

I am having the same issue. Refinanced my mortgage at mid-year and Turbo Tax is calculating average debt at twice the actual debt. Not applying the refi date properly. Please fix ASAP.

Expert Alumni

Feb 10, 2021 9:59:22 AM

Here is an article from TurboTax on entering the information from multiple 1098 forms: 1098

Level 1

Feb 10, 2021 10:58:07 AM

Thank you very much for the response. Your linked article describes a way to kluge around the bug in TurboTax by making it think you only have a single mortgage. It definitely will force TurboTax to calculate the interest deduction correctly. Hopefully, Intuit will still fix the bug ASAP as I'm sure there are people out there who won't realize they are being short-changed the interest deduction.

New Member

Mar 21, 2021 10:20:16 PM

I could not claim my full mortgage interest with my mortgage < $450,000 though I am not quite following the calculation yet. I have the same mortgage as 2019 when I could claim the full mortgage.

I need a fix for the calculation asap.

Thanks,

Daniel

Employee Tax Expert

Mar 22, 2021 7:38:19 AM

You can review your mortgage interest in the federal section of the program to ensure the correct amounts are entered for each loan.

Select Deductions & Credits
Select Mortgage Interest and Refinancing (Form 1098)
As you go through the screens, pay attention to the items below to ensure your items are reported correctly.

Since you just refinanced the same loan and if your total loan balance did not exceed $750,000 throughout the year, you will need to review your input.

Be sure that you have entered $0 for the loan that was paid off in Box 2 - Outstanding mortgage principal on the screen titled Let's get the details from your Home loan 1098.

You will also want to select that the loan that was refinanced and is no longer there at the end of the year is marked as paid off during the year.

Please see the following link for additional information on entering the refinanced mortgage interest expense.

Refinanced mortgage input

@danielh2000

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Why does TurboTax think my average balance is over $750K on my $500K refinanced mortgage and not let me deduct the full amount of interest I paid?