For California state taxes, TurboTax is MISSING the option to apply refund to next year's estimated taxes! Why is this option missing?

[robertjloeb]

Here are ONLY options I'm getting: How would you like to get your California refund? Fast deposit with Credit Karma Money™ checking account¹ $0 fee. No monthly fees. Delivered up to 5 days early² Get your paycheck up to 2 days early³ Fee-free overdraft up to $200⁴ Learn more Direct deposit Refund in 21 days for most customers Delivered to your bank account See other options Paper check Your paper check will be sent to your mailing address. This will take longer than direct deposit.

[SharonD007 · Accepted solution]

To apply your CA refund to next year's estimated taxes:

1. Go to your CA return and select Edit
2. When you get the the screen "Your 2025 California taxes are ready for us to check", select Edit next to Other situations (Extension, estimated payments and contributions)
3. On the next screen, select Apply refund to next year
4. On the next screen, enter the amount of your refund that you want applied to your 2026 taxes.

[robertjloeb]

Thanks, that is just what I finally found myself. But besides being in that somewhat buried place it should also be part of the refund dialogue right before you file since that is the natural place where you would decide what to do with the refund. Hopefully, TurboTax monitors these questions and looks into this. In the existing dialogue TurboTax is pushing their faster refund product as the first choice but they should also be showing at that point the refund can be "rolled over" into your estimated tax for the next year instead of making you get out of that dialogue and find we they have it buried and not in the natural way one would expect. Very poor use case for that dialogue on refund handling!