Cannot enter Medicare wages in excess of $9,999,999.99 on W-2 form.

[njbobcat23]

I have a W-2 where the Medicare wages are more than $10,000,000.00. This is due to prepayment of FICA taxes on a lump sum pension payment that my former employer required. I'm using Turbo Tax Home and Business for 2022. When I try to enter the W-2 data, I get an error message stated as above and I can't over-ride or ignore it to get the W-2 in. This seems like a bug to me that can and should be easily fixed. Clearly there is no limit on Medicare wages so why is TurboTax imposing one?  I've worked around it by creating a second W-2 from the same employer with 0's in all boxes except Medicare Wages (box 5). Together they add up to all the right numbers, but this is clunky and perhaps causing miscalculations elsewhere.

[PatriciaV · Accepted solution]

Yes, you have entered this in the only way available in TurboTax. The program limits for W-2 amounts require two entries for wages or deductions over the limit. The important consideration is that the total accurately matches the W-2 you received.

Also, check for any SmartCheck errors for overpayment of FICA. You may have reported more than the maximum for the year.

[njbobcat23]

Thanks for the response and confirming the workaround. The question remains why this limit even exists. What could possibly be the problem that is being avoided by preventing entries over the limit? 

Again, thank you for your time and help.

[Opus 17]

Turbotax generally has a design limit, it is not designed to be used when income values are more than $10M.  If only your medicare income is more than $10M, the rest of the program might work for you, but I suspect you will run into further problems down the line.  While I am not privy to Intuit's thinking, I suspect they feel that anyone with more than $10M of income should not be relying on a $60 program to do their taxes.  

[DMarkM1]

It is simply due to number of characters that can be entered in the W2 box 5 in TurboTax.  The same limitation exists for box 1 entries on the form W2.  

According to the form W2 instructions (here), there is no limit to the amounts that can be reported in boxes 1 and 5.

[njbobcat23]

PatriciaV,

While I did manage to get the W-2 entered into TurboTax by splitting it into 2 entries that add up correctly, I'm now having an issue filing the return. TurboTax simply won't transmit the federal return if there is more than one W-2 from a single employer. I assume it is only checking the EIN, but is there any other way to differentiate the two enough to get past the error check?  I also tried  overriding the Medicare wages total on the W2/W2G Summary form. The issue then is an error that states any manual override on that form will require submitting the return by mail. Is there anything else I can try to get my return to transmit and be accepted?  

Thanks!

[DianeW777]

It depends.  The IRS does have your W-2 (from your employer) and the medicare taxes are not part of the income tax return unless it is owed for reasons other than your situation.  You can try to put the maximum amount excepted in the field with one W-2 to see if the e-file will go through.  If not, you may have to mail your tax return due to your circumstances.

@njbobcat23 

[njbobcat23]

@DianeW777 

I can reduce the box 5 total to the max allowed and delete the additional W-2s.  That then leads TurboTax down the path that we've paid way too much Medicare tax based on the entry in box 6. It also miscalculates the additional tax on Form 8959. There are probably other cascading errors, too. 

[DianeW777]

Mail is the option for your situation.  Thank you for your update.