On my 1099-INT, Adjustments to Interest section, it says "Enter adjustment amount (enter as positive if subtracting / negative if adding)". However, when I enter a negative number, TurboTax gives me an error: "Schedule B -- Form 1099-INT (Internal Revenue Service): Adjustment amount should be greater than zero for Internal Revenue Service". How do I resolve this?
For context, my wife and I are married filing separately and dividing IRS interest payments.
If you are adjusting the amount of interest received because a portion of it is being reported on your wife's return, you would want to enter the adjustment as a positive number and use I received all or part of this interest for someone else as the reason for the adjustment. This will reduce the interest reported on your return. Your wife would need to report whatever portion of it that you do not.
If done correctly, the Interest on 1099-INT reported in the Your Income screen should reflect only your share of the interest.
What you describe is what we are doing. However, my wife also received an IRS interest form. My interest was higher than hers, thus mine needs to be adjusted down (positive number entered) and hers needs to be adjusted up (negative number entered). I assume that is why the instructions tell you to enter a negative number to adjust upwards. However, how to I clear the TurboTax error from entered said negative adjustment?
It will not allow a negative adjustment with that Reason code. If you switch the reason for adjustment to Other reasons it should work. If it is still causing an error because of the negative amount, I would just enter it as a separate 1099-INT from the same issuer on your wife's return.