Can't efile, box 19 is greater than box 18 (CA W-2)

[JoshRideout1]

Hello,

Turbotax will not let me efile my taxes because my box 19/Local Income Tax number (418.59) is greater than my box 18/Local Wages, Tips, etc. number (0). I work for a local/county government. This number is not in error, It's been given to me from two different sources available to me to acquire my taxes from - an online source available via a county website, and a hard copy given to me from our departmental fiscal office, which itself got it directly from the county offices.

How do I fix this? I've already checked with fiscal, there is nothing wrong with my W-2, there's no correction to be made. This is exactly how its supposed to look, as I've been told. Why am I not allowed to efile?

[BillM223]

Boxes 18, 19, and 20 are for reporting an income-based tax from a local government (your employer?).

If you had zero income, then why was income tax withheld? How is the income-based tax in your County calculated?

Until we know that and what County you work for, we can't really say why your employer thinks this is correct.

[JoshRideout1]

I work for Santa Cruz county,  but I am not privvy to how they calculated income-based tax. The county's tax rate is 9.3%, if that helps at all? And I did not have zero income, just zero for local wages. My actual income is listed correctly elsewhere on my W-2.

Although the county is my employer, the department I work for is partially funded by the state government of California, if that may have any bearing on it?

Thank you for your help, by the way.

[BillM223]

I can't find any information on the Santa Cruz County website about an income tax. Yet I find other places that say that the tax rate for the county is 9.3% (which seems really high to me). Another place says that the 9.3% is the sum of state, city and county taxes.

Hmmn, what you might do is enter your state wages (box 16) into box 18. Now I cannot promise that this will e-file all right, but I don't think the state of California will care about local tax information (I know the IRS won't).

Well, add the number and see if your California e-file is Accepted (I am not sure when California opens for e-filing - the IRS opens on February 12th).

[JoshRideout1]

Thank you! I'll give it a try.

[JoshRideout1]

I found an answer! Sort of... apparently I have filed my taxes with this configuration for several years, and after some searching around I found that the only difference being that the program differentiates an entry of "$0.00" differently than a blank form. So when I removed the "$0.00" and left it blank, it allowed me to file!