I have multiple W2s (one of them is IHSS live-in provider, no federal or state income tax withholding) from multiple jobs, and I had exceeded social security tax withheld and CA-SDI withheld, which are my motivation for reporting my IHSS W2: to simply get back my exceeded payment for social security tax and CA-SDI. That said, yes, I do want to report the IHSS W2 income.
There have been some discussions on this topic, and it seems some people couldn't efile and had to mail in their tax return.
Following https://ttlc.intuit.com/community/taxes/discussion/re-ihss-tax-exempt-can-t-e-file-with-w2-having-0-in-box-1/01/3180751/highlight/true#M1169266c (yes, I did step 4, 5, and 6) from MonikaK1, I did see my tax refund being increased to reflect the exceeded social security tax payment. However, TurboTax (Premium desktop version) doesn't allow me to efile because "One of the W2s doesn't have an amount in box 1 or the amount is less than $1".
I wonder if anyone has any luck lately?
It seems I can either print and mail my tax return (for both federal and state?), or I can try the trick of entering $1 for box 1 (though, I wonder if that would cause other issues as that won't match the exact W2).
You will not be able to e-file your return with a W-2 that has $0.00 in Box 1. You are correct that you can either print and mail your returns, or you can add $1 to box 1. Adding $1 to the W-2 will result in the W-2 not exactly matching the IRS records, but the difference is negligible and should just be ignored by the IRS.