claim of right selection incorrectly auto-populates unemployment repayment option, and can’t be fixed

[socalbonzi]

tl;dr- I can’t enter a claim of right repayment deduction without the SW automatically and incorrectly adding the same amount as an unemployment benefits repayment.  

when adding an amount in the“claim of right repayment over $3000” option as a deduction, the deduction looks correct, but unfortunately, the software triggers this to automatically add this same amount to “unemployment benefits repayment” in the wages section. when i remove this amount from the wages section (which i never filled out in the first place), my claim of right deduction gets deleted, thus restarting the cycle. 

seems like a sw bug that’s stopping me from being able to complete my taxes. 

[rjs · Accepted solution]

The negative amount shown for unemployment on the Income Summary screen is not a problem. It's just a result of a confusing way that the TurboTax interview handles the repayment. Don't try to remove it. The actual tax return is correct. The repayment is entered as an itemized deduction on Schedule A line 16. There is no repaid unemployment on the tax return.

[socalbonzi]

ok that's helpful.  ty. not wrong, just hacky 🙂

[KrisD15]

The deduction entered should be listed on Schedule A line 16.

If you take the Standard Deduction, rather than Itemize, the deduction will not be recognized. 

If it was repaid in the same tax year, the employer should have corrected your W-2.

If it was repaid in a following year, and if you do not itemize deductions, you might want to consider taking the tax credit instead. 

The tax credit can only be done using TurboTax Desktop. 

Here is a link with more information. 

[socalbonzi]

thanks for the info.  the question wasn't about the tax strategy, but more about how turbo tax online handles it through the workflow to ensure the resulting forms are filled out correctly.  it sounds like, though it is not intuitive (bringing unemployment retroactively into the conversation out of nowhere), Schedule A does get filled out correctly.