The error messaging you are seeing with regard to the wash sale entries is a result of automatic rounding of the number imported from your broker or typed in by you. If the wash sale adjustment is $0.49 or less, then it is automatically rounded to zero. This type of rounding is allowed by the IRS. Unfortunately, zero is not a valid value for this field -- thus the error message.
To resolve the issue, you can edit each individual transaction (although not from the screen in the review process) and delete the amount entered in the wash sale adjustment if it is $0.49 or less. This will clear the error message.
To do this, you will need to revisit the input section for the Form 1099-B transactions. Use the following steps:
If you have too many transactions that would require editing, you can consider deleting your imported information and entering a summary of the different categories of transactions reported on your Form 1099-B (short-term covered, short-term not covered, long-term covered, long-term not covered). This would require you to mail a copy (not the original) of your Form 1099-B from your brokerage to the IRS within three days of filing your return. The Form 1099-B would be attached to Form 8453, which will print with your return.
Thank you. Following these steps was able to get around your software bug issue.
I'm encountering the same issue where my wash sale amounts are under the 0.49 limit. When I follow the steps here and find the single transaction to edit, there is no field for wash sale. I only see box 1a, box 1c, box 1b, box 1d and box 13 with text inputs. Where can I remove the wash sale value?
I had the same problem. Since the worksheet is not necessary for filing but simply for my records, I deleted the ones that had this error so I could e-file. Not scientific but it works.
update: Since the worksheet is not necessary for filing, I deleted the 5 with the zero adjustment issue and was able to submit the file for transmission. not scientific but it works. The 1099 B was captured correctly; the problem was on the worksheet only.
Thank you for your instructions here, I was able to manually add a summary to get past this issue.
It's absurd that the actual "review and fix" section at the end tells you nothing about why it's wrong, and actually deletes the input I type in without typing why - and even if I delete the box like it says, it sends me on an infinite loop to fix things.
Also - the original problem should be fixed in the first place to import correctly. It seems like someone somewhere along the line didn't account for how the IRS rounds numbers - this should be accounted for so the "automatic" import works the first time.
I use betterment, which does a ton of transactions in the background to minimize tax losses (I had 460 transactions).
Please fix this issue so others don't have to go through the same problem.
I use Betterment as well and this work around allowed me to e-file. Just to further clarify, if like me you got confused with the zero value, you only have to correct entries that are $0.01 to $0.49 values that get rounded down to $0.00. You do NOT have to fix entries that are already showing $0.00.
Ended up just editing a few entries, thank goodness. It does take a while because of the interface, you'd have to submit after the update, then answer a question for every entry. Also, If your item is in page 10, you are returned to page 1 after every update.
This did turn out to be a time waster, to be honest.
Thanks for the work around, though.
All my adjustments are already at 0 before trying this workaround. And I am still getting this error message.
I had the same issue and it took several phone calls to be ressolved. This issue costs a significant amount of time and manual edits to fix. Please solve this TurboTax!
Having the same issue. My wash sales say 0 already and it’s still not letting me wrap things up. Very frustrating.
same problem - this is insane. This is basic stuff. why is turbox tax rounding numbers on a tax form.
Sorry to hear that some are still having issues with existing $0.00 values.
I guess one thing to double check is that the entries being caught in the Review validation (when trying to file) can appear multiple times in the transaction. I used the description value and ‘Date Sold’ values to match them together.
For example:
...Box ‘X’
Description: 0.123456h Blah Blah (this can appear multiple times in the transactions list)
Date Sold: 03/15/2020.
You’d need to update the correct match in the actual 1099-b form transactions list page NOT in the Review page.
You can not change this in the review. A wash sale of less than 50 cents is automatically rounded to "0" by TT which is not an acceptable entry. Go the the income section and you can override the amount. The box cannot be zero, but you can delete the "0" and leave it blank. If you have a large number of sales in your 1099-B (over 1,000) turbo tax may crash when you try this.
I cannot fix this issue as I have both betterment and vanguard with 84 errors. TurboTax should fix or provide a more complete answer. This makes no sense at all.
This happened to me too – there were 15 entries I had to correct on the form imported from Betterment but some had multiple entries so in the end there were about 20 I had to edit individually. I agree, it was really confusing language in the review, no way to actually change it there, and I don't even know what a "wash sale adjustment" is! Took a long time but it resolved the issue. Should not be a hard thing for TurboTax to fix...
The rule defines a wash sale as one that occurs when an individual sells or trades a security at a loss and, within 30 days before or after this sale, buys a "substantially identical" stock or security, or acquires a contract or option to do so.
A wash sale also results if an individual sells a security, and the individual's spouse or a company controlled by the individual buys a substantially equivalent security.
To enter a disallowed Wash sale:
Income & Expenses
Note: You'll need TurboTax Premier, TurboTax Live Premier, or TurboTax Self-Employed, TurboTax Live Self-Employed, to add any 1099-B forms.
To better document what occurred in my case.
I sold around $33K of betterment mutual fund as I closed out my betterment account.
When I imported my transactions from Betterment, TurboTax identified about 1,000 transactions were imported. Of those transactions 84 were labeled with an error. The instruction provided to go to the form in error and "remove" the $0.0 error and make it blank worked for 3 entries. The patterns that I saw were where the purchase and sale were rounded to $0.0 and the sale resulted in $0.0 entry. Other errors were exact sale values of $5 purchase and sale. I am using the downloaded version of Windows 10 of TurboTax premier. The instructions in that version of the software explain to go to the form, double click the field, use ctrl-d to override the value, clear the value. When you then click out of the field, the field stays in error even though it is now blank as per the instruction on the form. Note that by having these errors TurboTax will not allow online filing, it walks you through, in an infinite loop, the correction of the fields in the "reviews" mode which is entirely useless. Also, the editing of the slow and tedious with turbotax "calculating" between every modification. What I did was to remove the remaining 81 forms in error as the impact was a change of $2 in increased tax payment. CLEARLY TurboTax or Betterment has a problem on wash sales that result in a rounded value of $0.0. There is also another bug where editing the field to make it blank, by deleting the $0.0 value does not clear the TurboTax error. This occurred on sales ranging from $0.0 to $0.0 and on sales up to $13 and $14 that resulted in the less than .50 cents rounding issue. I would be more than happy to send TurboTax what ever information they need to troubleshoot because it was "hours" of fixing as even deleting the form was painful -- form deletes and then 30 second wait for turbotax to calculate, save the file, move on to the next form - try to edit the field, failure, delete form, 30 second wait to calculate, save file etc....
@JohnB5677 Thanks, but ultimately that means nothing to me and I won't memorize this for next year... The point of using TurboTax is so the average user doesn't have to study the intricacies of tax and finance to be able to file their taxes. I don't need to know how to enter a disallowed wash sale. I imported the 1099-B and ultimate the issue here is on TurboTax's side, as evidenced by everyone on this thread.
this is infuriating. having the same nightmarish experience as everyone else... all due to a turbotax bug they apparently would rather have us deal with than fix with a simple script? the best part- it's not obvious this is a blocker to filing until after you've already paid and are about to e-file. so during the ~1hr plus im manually fixing this issue, turbotax is spamming me trying to get me to "file now!". thinking about quitting my job to go lobby to shutdown intuit.
having the same issue this is maddening beyond words how do i fix this someone explain to me pretty pretty please in a simple clear way using turb otax online
Pretty sure "if <washamount> <=.49 then blank else <washamount> would fix your code.
I liked it better when this wouldn't import and I could still file and mail 100 pages of details to the IRS
When I follow your directions I still have to search through 24 pages of imported records and search for the transaction because there is no search or filter functionality. This is horrible.
i checked at least 5 times to see if any were >0.49 and none are they're all 0.00 , i dont know why turbo tax hasnt fixed this, and when i try to type " 0.00 " in the review page it doesn't let me, just an infinite cycle of " needs review " im going to give it a day it not ima call customer service and let them fix it for me.
@ivand9489 This thread has made it pretty clear that you DO NOT edit in the Review page but in the actual 1099-b transactions list page.
Let’s hope that a fix will be deployed soon. 🤞