Amended return causes "Check This Entry" prompt saying "Sch SE-T: Max deferral line 18 is too large." Huh?

[DaveLaQ]

Did not see this when processing the original return (2020 TT Home and Biz).

Creating this amended return, I added some self-employment business expenses, some real estate tax paid, and a work expense for my wife. I don't think the latter two changed anything, so I'm betting it's the biz expenses addition that did it.

So now line 18 is greater than line 3, which would definitely be problematic since the former is supposed to be a subset of the latter. Two questions:

1) Why doesn't TurboTax fix this on its own? Simple coding oversight?
2) How should I approach updating this line 18 number?

Many thanks.

[Anonymous_]

Contact Support on Monday.

What is the TurboTax phone number? (intuit.com)

[rjs · Accepted solution]

Yes, the added business expenses created the problem. When you prepared your original tax return, TurboTax asked you how much of your self-employment income you earned from March 27, 2020 through December 31, 2020. The amount you entered is on Schedule SE line 18. But the added expenses reduced your total net profit for the year (line 3) to less than you said you earned from March 27 on. Obviously that can't be.

TurboTax cannot fix it on its own because it's not an amount that TurboTax calculates. It's an amount that you enter. TurboTax has no way of knowing how much of your self-employment income you earned from March 27 to the end of the year, except to ask you. To correct the error you have to go through the self-employment tax deferral section of the interview again and enter the revised amount.

Here's how to do it in TurboTax Home & Business for 2020.

• Click the Personal tab.
• Click Deductions & Credits.
• Click "I'll choose what I work on."
• On the screen "Your 2020 Deductions & Credits," scroll down to the section "Tax relief related to COVID-19."
• Click the Update button for "Self-employment tax deferral."
• The first screen asks "Do you want more time to pay your self-employment tax?" Click Yes.
• On the next screen, enter the amount of your revised self-employment income that you earned from March 27 to December 31.
• On the next screen, check the reduced amount that can now be deferred.