On my 1099b, box 1b "Date acquired" is blank. Like, white space. No data. Nothing there.
TurboTax asks "Select the information type you see in Box 1b"
Do you see a date? Or something other than a date? Of course I see Something Other Than A Date
TurboTax asks "Is it blank, or does it say VARIOUS?"
It's blank. So I say, It's blank.
TurboTax flags this as an error and won't process my 1099b
It would be reasonable if TurboTax would say SINCE THE DATE IS BLANK ON THE 1099b, PLEASE ENTER THE CORRECT DATE NOW.
But TurboTax is asking me WHAT IS ON YOUR 1099b.
It doesn't say SINCE YOU SEE A BLANK, PLEASE ENTER THE DATE YOU WOULD LIKE TO USE
It just says Do you see a blank? Thanks for telling me the form is blank. By the way, ERROR, cannot process.
For now, I have changed my answer to say that my 1099b shows the word VARIOUS. Because that gets me out of the error situation.
And VARIOUS is a good answer to Date Acquired. The 1099b should have said VARIOUS. But it doesn't.
It would make sense if TurboTax didn't ask "what do you see in box 1b" but instead asked me "what is the actual date acquired (which your financial institution may or may not have put in box 1b)" .
I hope I worked around it correctly.
As long as you get the proper treatment of the investment sale on Schedule D, capital gains and losses, as short term (part I) or long term (part II), you be fine. If entering "Various" does not work, you can choose an acquisition date that will result in the sale being more than one year (long term) or less that one year (short term) from the acquisition date.
Thanks for the reassurance.
Someday I hope Intuit will fix the UI, because the sentiment "I had to make up some data to blunder my way through this form" is uncomfortable when one is dealing with the federal government. The fix would be a UI that asks questions like
Does the 1099 have a blank date? [x] Yes { does not raise an error, because it's a truthful answer }
In that case, enter the correct date |_____|