Has there been a solution found for the Sch SE-S and Sch SE-T (reference code: 5-569-197) turbotax glitches yet? I really need to file my taxes.

Line 11 is adjusted gross income, so it should have a value. This error is about electing to not defer any self- employment tax. To resolve this error, try two troubleshooting steps:

First, revisit the section for the Self-employment tax deferral entry:

1. Return to the Deductions & Credits section.
2. Scroll to Tax relief related to COVID-19 and Show More.
3. Select Self-employment tax deferral and select Revisit.
4. Answer Yes at the next screen to get back to Let's start by getting your eligible income.
   1. If you do not want to defer any self-employment income, "Enter your eligible self-employment income" should be blank.
      1. Select Continue.
   2. At Tell us how much you'd like to defer, "Enter amount" should be blank.
      1. Select Continue.
5. Scroll down and select Wrap up Tax Breaks and Continue.
6. At Charitable Cash Contributions under Cares Act, if you made cash donations to eligible organizations, enter the amount up to $300 for all taxpayers except married filing separate, who would each have a maximum of $150 and Continue. Otherwise, leave this section blank, do not add 0 if this is not applicable.
7. I recommend running through the Federal Review again.

Secondly, if the error is still in the return,

1. Delete the Sch SE that applies--(Sch SE-T is for Taxpayer, Sch SE-S for Spouse)--by following these steps:
   1. From the left menu, select Tax Tools.
   2. Select Tools.
   3. Scroll to Delete a Form.
   4. Scroll to Sch SE-T and/or Sch SE-S and select Delete.
2. Return to the self-employment income & expenses interview in the Income & Expenses section and select Edit/Add.
   1. Select Edit for your business.
   2. Scroll down to Done so that the Sch SE is recalculated. 
   3. Finish any other questions in the self-employment interview and click Continue.​​​​​​​
3. Review the return again.

[Edited 02/20/2021 | 5:24 AM PST]

​​​​​​​@null515

@KathrynG3, ​​​​​​​I'd appreciate your advice if you have anything to add to this as I still don't have an answer and still haven't heard back from the support agent who promised to call me back...

For your first suggestion, Self Employment Tax deferral: I can't do the steps you suggested because I get a message that because I'm getting a refund, I cannot defer my taxes, then it takes me back to the deductions page. 

For your second suggestion: I don't have those forms on my return. (See screenshots of forms I do have.) This is one of the things the other agent was supposed to call me back about. She said I needed to delete the forms as well but I can't delete what I don't have. She couldn't find them either. She ended up getting whoever her support person is and they viewed my screen and had me try a bunch of things that didn't work, after a couple of hours they eventually said they would call me back. Which she did the following day to say she still didn't have an answer but it was in fact a glitch in the Turbo Tax system and it should be fixed in "a day or two" and she would call me back. No one ever called me back and I still can't find a solution. 

Is there any other advice you can give me? The only other option I can think of is to clear and start over but that's hours and hours of work with no guarantee to fix the problem. 

Thanks!

Before deleting things and restarting, first be sure to have cleared cache & cookies by holding down Ctrl + Shift + Del. Clear for at least 7 days using Basic. This will log you out everywhere, so do not do this if you do not remember passwords or have them otherwise stored.

Next, be sure you are using a PC, not an iPad or Chromebook. Log out of the program completely and close the browser completely. Re-open in Chrome.

Then, try deleting the Schedule SE Adjustments Worksheet.

Go through each Schedule C to click done. This will have TurboTax generate a new Schedule SE for the two Schedule C's.

When the Review is done, you may need to enter in a fraction of the total income. March 27-December 31 is 280/366ths of the year, or about 76% of the income. 

@null515 

I cleared the 0. Then attempted to click on line below, it doesn't click on it but it does clear the line so you can then continue.

There are 2 solutions to this issue:

1. You can enter 0 or leave that box blank and it should allow you to e-file (this works for some)
2. You can go back to Deductions and Credits and answer the questions, see if you qualify or not, then click Review. If you get that message again, enter 0, and it should go through. 

For more details, see TurboTax Expert @DawnC's answer here, about 2/3 down the page: Resolve Sch SE-T Max Deferral Line 18 must be entered.

I am getting these same two errors and have attempted all of these solutions, and I still get the same results with every review. The is extremely frustrating.

To review how to clear the error, there are four ways to get this resolved. The initial answer can be released and the program will update. It is best to be in a Chrome browser, but I have seen people using Safari be able to update by deleting and re-adding the Sch SE, though.

When leaving the question blank or entering 0 does not work, then the next step is to force the update by deleting Schedule SE, and then running through the Schedule C again to click Done. This will force a new Schedule SE to be added. 

To do this in TurboTax:

1. Delete the Sch SE that applies--(Sch SE-T is for Taxpayer, Sch SE-S for Spouse)--by following these steps:
   1. From the left menu, select Tax Tools.
   2. Select Tools.
   3. Scroll to Delete a Form.
   4. Scroll to Sch SE-T and/or Sch SE-S and select Delete.
2. Return to the self-employment income & expenses interview in the Income & Expenses section and select Edit/Add.
   1. Select Edit for your business.
   2. Scroll down to Done so that the Sch SE is recalculated. 
   3. Finish any other questions in the self-employment interview and click Continue.
3. Review the return again.

If this box cannot be left blank after updates, will not accept 0 for an answer, and after deleting Sch SE, you are still experiencing unexpected results, then there is one more process to try: temporarily trigger a balance due by adding income long enough to decline the SE tax deferral option, then remove the extra income.

To do this in TurboTax, follow these steps:

Enter a temporary amount as income in the self-employment section that will result in you not having a refund.

1. From the left menu, select Federal.
2. From the Income & Expenses, scroll to Self-employment income & expenses and Edit/Add.
3. At Your 2020 work summary, select Edit.
4. Under INCOME, select Add income for this work.
5. Add Other self-employed income, includes 1099-K, cash, and checks and Continue.
6. At Type of income, enter Temp income to remove deferral and enter a large amount, such as $100,000 and Continue.

Decline to defer any self-employment tax.

1. From the left menu, click on Federal.
2. Click the second tab from the left, Deductions & Credits.
3. Scroll down to Tax Relief related to Covid-19 and Revisit.
4. Select Self-employment tax deferral and select Revisit.
5. Answer Yes at the next screen to get back to Let's start by getting your eligible income
   1. Enter 280/366ths of your income to reflect the income from March 27-December 31, 2021. 
      • This amount should be calculated and entered without the false added income, and will post to Line 18 of Sch SE
   1. Select Continue.
   1. At Tell us how much you'd like to defer, 
      • Enter 0.

Remove the temporary income.

1. From the left menu, select Federal.
2. From the Income & Expenses, scroll to Self-employment income & expenses and Edit/Add.
3. At Your 2020 work summary, select Edit.
4. Under INCOME, select the Trash can icon next to Temp income to remove deferral and Continue.

@jomacgugan

It's impossible to delete the zero. Deleting the Sch SE-S form also didn't help.   The solution is to uncheck a little box that says something about printing when you are looking at the error in 

1040/1040SR Wks: line 11.  Support supplied this solution.

Agreed, the proposed solutions are unworkable for me. I tried several times and have gotten nowhere. It seems this is a fundamental software flaw. It would be nice to have a more straight forward fix.

To resolve this, it is important to also be using a PC with Windows 10 in a Chrome (try incognito) browser. When the program has not been closed out, the solution may be input but still not update. It is imperative to close out of the program and close the browser window, too. 

This is a question because of initially qualifying to defer a portion of your self-employment tax, before all the details were entered into the return. Once a refund was established, the deferral was no longer an option.

For TurboTax CD/Download, it is important that the program is completely up to date. Check under Online in the menu bar to Check for Updates. Close out of the program completely and reopen it, too.

Using TT Home & Business, I had the same problem with the Sch SE-S showing a net loss, deferral amount of zero on line 18 too big, etc.  None of the solutions offered worked for me: enter 260/366? of net loss amount, blank out line 18, delete Sch SE-S and recalculate, put in temporary income to allow decline of SE tax deferral and recalculate without temporary income, etc.  What finally worked was ignoring the problem on line 18 (no other problems found), and going ahead to submit.  After I clicked on transmit, I got a message that there was a problem found and was blocked from e-filing, the usual SE worksheet came up showing line 18 with the same error message, and the same message came up again, each time I tried to ignore and submit.  Finally, I tried to blank out the value in line 18, was successful, and the transmission went through.

You are correct, a blank can sometimes resolve the issue.

280/366ths of income would cover the days from March 27 through December 31, 2020.

It is an issue that occurs when the Schedule C happened to be entered first and there was no refund. Then, once there was a refund, the option to defer self-employment taxes was no longer available.

I appreciate you sharing your solution and for your patience.

I have tried all the suggested solutions on this Forum   none have worked for me.   HELP

It may not have been clear from my original message and the reply, but nothing worked for me either, including changing the value to a blank.  Finally, I just decided to go ahead and file my return electronically, even with the error message for zero value too large, which I decided would probably not cause a problem when the return is reviewed.  What I found was that the filing transmission would not go through, and the same error was displayed, along with the SE worksheet, but I was able to change the value on the worksheet to a blank at that point, where I had not been able to do so before. After that, the transmission went through.  Did you try that?

@ddub65 Since you continue to experience the same problem, even after following the troubleshooting steps, please click the link to contact TurboTax customer support for further assistance.

We have been trying to get support for a month. Support acknowledged that there's a bug after a few hours on the phone. They said they would get back to us in 48 hours. This was over a week ago. So infuriating. Turbo Tax is absolute trash.

Perhaps this will help.

In TurboTax Online Self-Employed, I was able to remove self-employment tax deferral and pass Review.  In some cases, you may need to add temporary income to your self-employment activity to generate a balance due and allow you to access the self-employment tax deferral questions.  Follow these steps.

• Down the left side of the screen, click on Federal.
• Across the top of the screen, click on Deductions  & credits.
• Under Your tax breaks, scroll down to Self-employment tax deferral.
• Click on Edit/Add to the right of Self-employment tax deferral.
• At the screen Do you want more time to pay your self-employment tax?, click Yes.
• At the screen Let's start by getting your eligible income, I have left the dollar amount that was previously entered, others change this amount to $0.
• Click on Continue.
• At the screen Tell us how much you'd like to defer, delete the dollar amount.
• Click Continue.
• Click through Federal Review to make sure than the Review issue has been removed.
• At the screen Some of your self-employment taxes may be eligible, click Skip. 

The self-employment tax deferral is an optional benefit.  It is also a deferral rather than forgiveness, so those amounts will eventually need to be repaid. Half of the deferred amount is due on December 31, 2021, and the other half is due on December 31, 2022.

I'm having this issue and after clicking Yes on the 

Are you still experiencing this issue?

@alextoro

As of last weekend, yes. The problem is still there. We were ready to file early Feb and have wasted well over 15 hours on this.  We've about given up on all things Intuit. Hoping H&R block will serve us better after about 8 years of Turbo Tax.

Also, a little advice. When people are frustrated and using a forum to figure out how to get around bugs in your software, do not spam them with stupid cute emails about earning badges. The only badge I want is to have this over with.

Thank you for the feedback, I will make a note of this. We apologize for the frustration.

I think it would be helpful to have a TurboTax ".tax2020" file that is experiencing this issue. You can send us a “diagnostic” file that has your “numbers” but not your personal information. 

If you would like to do this, here are the instructions. Be sure to tag me by using "@" and KathrynG3. I will be looking for your token number to get this examined more closely immediately:

For TurboTax Online:

• From the left menu, click Tax Tools.
• Tools.
• Share my file with agent click Send.
• There will be a pop-up with a token number.

For TurboTax Desktop:

• On your menu bar at the very top, click "Online"
• Send Tax File to Agent click Send.
• The pop-up will have a token number.

I'll be able to open TurboTax with your numbers but not your personal information. That may help diagnose the issue.

@jomacgugan

I WAS eligible for this deferral, then I got to the error in the review section, and followed the instructions in this thread. Now, I'm NOT eligible any longer because my return shows a small Federal Refund. Please get your program corrected. This may have cost me greatly. 

The instructions in this thread were intended for cases where there was a Check this Entry issue with the SE Tax Deferral section because there was actually no eligibility to defer self-employment tax once all the details had been entered in the return. 

To verify the results for your situation, revisit the SE section and enter a value for 280/366ths of income, which would cover the days from March 27 through December 31, 2020. However, the IRS allows you to "use any reasonable method" to calculate the amount of income that could be deferred.

This deferral does not forgive the tax. It allows 50% to be paid later via  Electronic Federal Tax Payments System at EFTPS. The entire self-employment tax calculated for 2020 is still charged. If the deferral is elected, then:

• 50% of the 2020 SE tax is due by December 31, 2021.
• 50% of the 2020 SE tax is due by December 31, 2022.

To run through a worksheet and confirm your results, see 2020 Form 1040 Instructions, Schedule 3 Line 12e instructions beginning on page 104. The worksheet is on page 105.

For more resources, see:

2020 Schedule SE Instructions for Part III begin on page 6.

2020 Schedule SE, see page 2, Part III for the deferral reporting.

[Edited 05/16/2021 | 9:01 PM PST]

@aljoyce459